▶ 0:26:50Committee on Transportation Infrastructure will come to order and I'd ask unanimous consent that chairman be authorized to declare recess at any time during today's hearing without objection. That is so ordered. As a reminder, if members insert a document into the record, please also email it to documents timail.house.gov. I now recognize myself for the purposes of a opening statement.
▶ 0:27:16Last year, I alongside uh ranking member Larson started down the path of examining how we can fix the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA. And around the same time, President Trump issued an executive order creating the FEMA Review Council to develop recommendations for the reforming of FEMA. What everyone seems to agree on is that FEMA is broken. And it's been that way for a for a long time.
▶ 0:27:41As communities impacted by disasters across the nation know the federal emergency management system needs fundamental change to reduce lives lost, speed up recovery, and lower costs to the taxpayer. For decades now, we thought we just made certain changes here and if we just made certain changes here and there, the process would get better. And in 2006, we passed the Post Katrina reforms. Then we passed the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act in 2013 and later the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018.
▶ 0:28:12This doesn't even count the bills we passed targeting specific issues, such bills uh such as bills that I authored to protect disaster victims from FEMA errors and to speed up smaller rebuilding uh projects. We passed reform after reform since FEMA was put into DHS. And what was the result?
▶ 0:28:34We have thousands of open disaster projects dating back to Hurricane Katrina, ballooning disaster costs, a bureaucracy that feels like you need a PhD to navigate, and little common sense. Any member who has had to help constituents navigate FEMA knows how complicated that the agency uh can be. FEMA is supposed to lead the federal government's preparedness for mitigation against response to and recovery from disasters.
▶ 0:29:03Given this mission, it should be the nimblest federal agency that we have. But instead, it continues to be swallowed up by the weight of its own red tape, regulations, and bureaucracy. And don't get me wrong, there are many good people at FEMA who want the system to work, but we need to make sure that they have the tools to be as effective as possible. Last May, Ranking Member Larson and I reduced or released a discussion draft of the Fixing the Emergency Management for Americans Act or the FEMA Act.
▶ 0:29:33The committee met with and received input from over 150 representing state and local governments, emergency managers, nonprofits, key industries, disaster victims, and other experts and stakeholders. and we've received input from members from both sides of the aisle and on and off this committee representing communities impacted by disasters.
▶ 0:29:55As a result, in July last year, we officially introduced the FEMA act incorporating the input that we received and in September ordered the bill as amended reported favorably to the House. More recently, in May of this year, the president's FEMA review council released its work. Not surprisingly, while there are some differences, the goals in many of the approaches in those recommendations mirror our FEMA act.
▶ 0:30:19For example, we all agree reforms must be focused on a system that is state-led, locally executed, and federally supported. I have said from day one, we all agree uh we all agree that FEMA's reimbursement process for rebuilding is inherently flawed. And so moving to upfront grants will not only speed uh speed things up, but they're going to reduce costs. Further, we all agree that investment in mitigation is crucial.
▶ 0:30:49So we must ensure that funding uh for projects moves faster and we are in agreement that the current way of providing assistance to disaster victims has been reformed to make more sense. Now that FEMA's review council recommendations have been released, we hope that we can move forward with passing the FEMA act. And I want to thank ranking member Larson for the work that he did um with me on this bill and for the leadership of Mr. Webster and subcommittee ranking member Stanton uh who are the original co co-sponsors.
▶ 0:31:20I look forward to hearing from our panel of experts today and thank you all by the way for um for being here. But I look forward to hearing uh your thoughts on on reforming FEMA. And now I recognize Rick for his opening statement.
▶ 0:31:32Thank you, Chair Graves, uh, for convening today's hearing on FEMA I can't overstate the importance of this hearing. The effectiveness of FEMA is literally a life or death matter. FEMA has not met the moment for a lot of disaster survivors when you look what happened after the Maui wildfires or hurricanes Helen and Milton. But that was not because FEMA did not try hard enough. It's because FEMA doesn't have the authority it needs to help people in the best and most efficient way.
▶ 0:32:02Then at the start of 2025, the president said we should eliminate or overhaul FEMA. I'm not aware of anyone on this committee who thinks eliminating FEMA is a good idea. That's just not a serious proposal. But we do agree, like we have for years, that FEMA needs real reform. That's why I was pleased to team up with Chair Graves and Ranking Member Stanton and Chair Webster to write the bipartisan FEMA act. We didn't write this bill behind closed doors.
▶ 0:32:27We talked to more than 150 stakeholders, put out a public draft as well, so anyone affected could weigh in. And what we ended up with a is a bill that overhauls how survivors and communities get help after disaster. It facilitates investment and damage pre prevention and makes FEMA an independent agency again. In December 2025, floods hit my district and impacted over 100,000 Washingtonians. The floods were the most expensive natural disaster the state had seen in 40 years.
▶ 0:32:57About $182 million in damage to public infrastructure, about 4,000 homes damaged. Since the flooding began, I've conducted 25 site visits and meetings across impacted communities and met directly with mayors of Wacom in Wacom and Scadget counties and emergency responders. I visited fedally funded home elevation projects and led direct outreach to impacted restaurants, retail stores, farms, and other small businesses in northwest Washington state. And the president did not declare a major disaster declaration until April of 2026.
▶ 0:33:28That's when FEMA aid finally started moving. And people are grateful for the help, but it hasn't been easy. I've since heard from folks back home who are lost trying to figure out what aid they even qualify for, bouncing between FEMA, the Small Business Administration, US Department of Egg, and H uh Department of Housing and Urban Development. Small farmers in Snomish and Scadget County have been hit especially hard, and a lot of them are falling through the cracks. Families are getting checks to fix their homes, but only for damage.
▶ 0:33:56FEMA decides um uh what makes a home unlivable. That's not the same as actually fixing what is broken. Meanwhile, state and local governments are stuck working through a bureaucracy that can take years. Emergency managers in Scadget County put these delays into perspective when they told me that 2021 flood victims did not receive mitigation grant funds to buy out and elevate their homes until 2024. Some homes flooded again, wait awaiting mitigation resources.
▶ 0:34:24And when a family is finally approved for flood mitigation funding, they have to um pay for that work themselves first and hope FEMA pays them back. So the TNI committee did work and passed the FEMA act on September 3rd of last year. And if it had become law, then Washington's recovery would look a lot different today. Survivors would not have to apply to five different There would be one universal application and the government would do the work of matching people to help they qualify instead of the other way around.
▶ 0:34:54Families would be eligible for help repairing all damage to their homes, not just the damage that makes it officially uninhabitable. Families could get up to $43,000 to make their homes stronger against the next disaster. And if if home was a total loss, families could work with FEMA to actually rebuild it. On the public infrastructure side, state and local governments would get reimbursed within 120 days for emergency work to protect lives and property. for permanent rebuilding like roads or bridges, schools or hospitals.
▶ 0:35:23State and local governments would get the money up front and FEMA could only turn them down if there's evidence of fraud in the application. State and local governments could also build mitigation into the report uh into the repair work from day one. That's just common sense and not something that FEMA allows today. If Washington state kept doing its part to prepare for disasters, which it has, it could get up to 85% of the cost to repair infrastructure covered by the federal government, freeing up state and local dollars for other investments in resilience and community services.
▶ 0:35:53The FEMA Act would also let homeowners get the money up front to raise or move their homes instead of forcing people already in crisis to pay out of pocket and hope for reimbursement later. Washington state would have a steady predictable predesaster mitigation funding program because the FEMA act makes brick a steady formula program and the state could combine FEMA mitigation dollars with other federal grants to take on the bigger smarter projects we need to deal with changing climate and for the rest of the members on the committee this wouldn't apply just to my state of Washington all this would apply to
▶ 0:36:23your own states as well these reforms need to be in place before these reforms needed to be in place before the December 2025 floods They have to be in place before the next disaster hits. Congress has already waited a year too long and today we will hear from witnesses with real experience in emergency management and related industries on what this reform would mean for them. So I want to thank you all for being here and look forward to your testimony. With that, yield back.
▶ 0:36:50Again, want to thank you all for uh for being here. Um I briefly want to take a a moment to explain our lighting system. So green means go. Um, yellow means you're running out of time and red means uh, please conclude your remarks. With that, I'd ask unanimous consent that the witness's full statements be included in the record. And without objection, that is so ordered. I'd ask unanimous consent that the record of today's hearing remain open until such time as our witnesses have provided answers to any questions that may have been submitted to them in writing without objection.
▶ 0:37:20That is so ordered. I'd also ask unanimous consent that the record remain open for 15 days for any additional comments and information submitted by members or witnesses to be included in the record of today's hearing. And without objection, that is so ordered. Your written testimony has been made a part of the record of the committee asks that you limit your oral remarks to uh to five minutes if you would. And with that, uh Mr. Fugate um who's the former FAA administrator, you're recognized.
▶ 0:37:48Uh Mr. Chairman Graves and Ranking Member Larson's, members of committees, thanks for having me here. It's always fun to testify when you're not a government official. Uh, nobody screened my testimony. Nobody gave me talking points and I generally ignored that. Um, I want to be clear about this. This bill addresses concerns and issues I faced at FEMA. What's interesting is, Mr.
▶ 0:38:12Chairman, most of what you're proposing to do with a couple exceptions FEMA can always do because I always ask my attorneys, if it ain't illegal, why can't we do it? Well, we have policy against it. You know, there's nothing in the Stafford Act that says you can't pick up debris on private property. That's policy. We should not be what local and state governments would not normally do.
▶ 0:38:34of private roads and other things, but faced with the tornadoes in Joplin and Tuscaloosa where I had debris fills that nobody could figure out whose house was on whose lot and that by making everybody move it to the curb, we were going to not address the key issue which was not picking up debris about getting housing back. I had to go to the president and have him overrule OMBB because everybody blames FEMA. Trust me, there are many spoons in this pot. And OMB said, "You should not be picking up debris on private property.
▶ 0:39:03you should make them resolve their in insurance claims to determine what the insurance would pay so we don't duplicate the benefit. Could you imagine doing that lot by lot if you ever saw the images of Joplin after an F5 tornado went and tore a h hard out of that urban So we picked up debris on private property because the Stafford Act says it's not illegal. That was a policy being able to do estimates. You gave us that authority in Superstorm Sandy. We used it. Here's the situation.
▶ 0:39:33Vermont had a state court state building that flooded, but it didn't reach the magic threshold of 50%. So FEMA's policy was, "We'll fix it where it stands." The state says, "That doesn't make sense. It flooded. We need to move it." FEMA says, "Well, if you move it, you're going to get less money because we only pay actual cost." When you gave us the ability to do an estimate, we were able to go in and Senator Lehey was very pleased with this. We negotiated with the state. We determine what the federal share, and again, this is the federal taxpayers's money.
▶ 0:40:02It's never been FEMA's money. The federal taxpayer would pay for the damages that were eligible in the full amount upfront. And now the state could take the remaining part of moving it and do it. And they were successful. We were able to resolve the water and sewage board in New Orleans, which we were doing by each mile, estimating what was pre-existing, caused by Katrina, and caused by deferred maintenance. we would have never been done. We used the estimate.
▶ 0:40:30We came up with a solution of using an engineering firm to come up with a methodology that both the state and FEMA agreed to. The IG reviewed it, core of engineers reviewed it, and we were able to make a settlement and resolve that. My last year at FEMA, an earthquake takes seconds. The paperwork shouldn't take decades. That's our situation. But the one thing in this bill I really want to point out because it gets to some questions people have about insurance and other things.
▶ 0:40:57This committee doesn't have jurisdiction over insurance and FEMA can't fix the insurance crisis we're facing. More and more people are underinsured are not able to get insurance. But giving FEMA the authority to repair homes to get them back in the state where people can move back in is key because up until this point we only had authority to shelter people.
▶ 0:41:18And trust me, we had bit ourselves in the pretzels figuring out how to get people back in their homes under shelter authority because it's much cheaper to put somebody back in their home, even if it's $80,000 in repair, than to pay three to 400 bucks a night for a hotel room in New York in supertorm Sandy. It saved the public money, but we never had clear authority to do permanent repairs. HUD's got it, but that program took too long to get there.
▶ 0:41:44Our ability instead of just putting a blue tarp on a roof or patching a house of getting it back to where it's habitable and people can move back into it addresses another key concern this bill touches on. And that is everybody talks about affordable housing. I'm not talking low-inccome. I'm talking workforce housing for communities where the workers are constantly being displaced because when homes are destroyed and rebuilt new, usually it's priced out of the market. The rental properties go up, people don't have access to it.
▶ 0:42:13So this ability to give FEMA a permanent authority to make repairs is key. In my state, I have a lot of seniors that are now going bare. They're not having insurance because they can't afford it. If their homes get destroyed, they have nothing. And FEMA's programs wouldn't make them whole. This bill gives them an opportunity to get those homes repaired and get back in them. So again, focus on the survivor, focus on the outcomes.
▶ 0:42:40Fraud, waste, and abuse has created more process and more bureaucracy. Not creating what we hoped was reducing fraud, waste, and abuse, but creating a monster of a policy bureaucratic recovery process. The earthquake takes minutes, the paperwork takes decades. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 0:42:58Thank you. Next up, we have uh Miss Lee Shang, who's the president of Jefferson Parish in Louisiana, and she's here with the National Association of Counties. Thanks for being here. Thank you, Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Larson, and distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for having me here today. My name is Cynthia Lee Shang, and I serve as parish president of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. I'm here representing the National Association of Counties, where I serve as the co-chair of the Intergovernmental Disaster Reform Task Force.
▶ 0:43:28And among the many responsibilities entrusted to counties, we are on the front lines of disaster mitigation, response, and recovery. Roughly 900 counties experience at least one presidentially declared disaster each year. And in 2025, our nation faced 23 separate billion dollar disasters that caused more than 115 billion dollars in damages. Following a disaster, local elected officials and emergency managers were first on the scene.
▶ 0:43:57And we play a key role in recovery and rebuilding efforts so our residents can return to their lives as quickly as possible. As major owners and operators of public infrastructure, counties are uniquely positioned to mitigate the impacts of disasters.
▶ 0:44:14America's 3,69 counties, parishes, and burrows own 44% of public roads, 38% of the national bridge inventory, 960 hospitals, and directly support 1th3 of our nation's airports. I'm here today to underscore the county role in strengthening our nation against disasters and to discuss how we can best work together to meet the challenges of today and the demands of the future.
▶ 0:44:43First, the FEMA Act provides a strong bipartisan framework to modernize the nation's disaster response and recovery system, and Congress should advance its core provisions without delay. Disaster response, recovery, and mitigation start local and they end local. However, these efforts would not be possible without continued support from federal programs through FEMA. One such program is in desperate need of reform is FEMA's public assistance program.
▶ 0:45:13Public assistance is crucial for helping communities rebuild after disasters, but the lengthy reimbursement process can delay recovery and hinder our ability to restore critical services. In 2024, Niko conducted a survey of members that found that one in five counties longest open public assistance claim has been in process between four and six years and nearly a third have been open for more than six years.
▶ 0:45:39Niko strongly supports the FEMA A's transition of the public assistance program from a reimbursement to a grantsbased model, which would provide funding upfront and reduce count's reliance on very costly Second, streamlining disaster assistance and environmental review processes will cut red tape and speed recovery for survivors and local governments alike.
▶ 0:46:03Requiring the completion of complex and very burdensome paperwork by communities who are unfamiliar with the processes during the most stressful times of their lives can significantly impede progress when it is most needed. Populations that feel the biggest impact are often our underserved and disadvantaged communities who lack the resources and capacity to complete applications and meet critical deadlines.
▶ 0:46:27The FEMA Act addresses this directly by establishing a universal disaster assistance application and streamlining environmental and historic preservation reviews, reducing unnecessary delays while still maintaining strong protections. The act's procurement waiver, which treats counties the same as states for federal contracting purposes, would also remove a significant obstacle to rapid disaster response.
▶ 0:46:50Finally, county officials are effective stewards of federal investments, and a strong intergovernmental partnership is needed to meet the entirety of our public sector responsibilities. Counties are not merely stakeholders in this conversation. Rather, we are part of the federal, state, and local partnership of governments that together share the responsibility of protecting our nation and its residents from disasters.
▶ 0:47:13And while disasters are inherently local, 45 states limit county's ability to raise revenue, making the intergovernmental partnership vital to meeting our public sector responsibilities. We rely on our state and federal partners for critical recovery tools like funding, human capital, and technical assistance. In conclusion, counties stand ready to work side by side with you to improve our nation's disaster response, recovery, and mitigation capabilities to ensure the health, well-being, and safety of our citizens.
▶ 0:47:44Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Larson, thank you again for the invitation to discuss this critical issue on behalf of America's counties. This concludes my testimony. I'm happy to accept questions later.
▶ 0:47:55Thank you. Next up, we have Mr. Jim Matson, who's the CEO of the uh National Rural Electric uh Cooperatives
▶ 0:48:04All right. Chairman Grace and Ranky May Larson and members of the committee, I want to thank you for inviting me to testify on behalf of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association or NRECA, which represents nearly 900 notfor-profit community-owned electric cooperatives. Electric cooperatives operate in 48 states. We power 42 million people across 56% of the nation's landscape, including much of America's agricultural economy.
▶ 0:48:30Co-ops are owned and governed by the people they serve, and they operate at cost, helping keep electric rates affordable, and that affordability is especially important because electric cooperatives serve 92% of the persistent poverty counties in the country. So, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the vital relationship between FEMA and America's Electric Cooperatives and explain why NRCA strongly supports passage of the bipartisan fixing emergency management for Americans or FEMA act.
▶ 0:49:00FEMA's public assistant program is a lifeline for electric cooperatives after natural disasters. Every year, co-ops lose poles, transformers, power lines, substations, and other critical infrastructure to ice storms, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, wildfires, and other events. Nearly half of electric cooperatives have received FEMA public assistance since 2020. And because co-ops operate at cost, major recovery expenses cannot be absorbed through excess margins.
▶ 0:49:28Without federal support, those costs flow directly to rural families, farmers, and businesses through higher electric bills. And on average, electric cooperatives serve only eight customers per mile, compared to 32 for other utilities. So, FEMA assistance helps ensure that sparsely populated rural communities are not left to shoulder enormous recovery costs alone. But this is not just a rural issue.
▶ 0:49:53433 of the 435 congressional districts have had a major disaster declaration in the past 15 years. While the FEMA co-op partnership is essential, um it can work better. Funding approvals involving FEMA and state coordination often take years. Paperwork requirements are overly complex and rules and interpretations vary by region. These delays slow recovery, strain rural systems, prolong outages, and increase costs for consumer members already facing tight budgets.
▶ 0:50:23NRCA strongly supports the FEMA act because it offers specific practical solutions to these problems. The bill includes reforms that are aligned with NRCA's five FEMA reform priorities that would make FEMA faster, more transparent, and more effective for cooperatives and the communities that depend on reliable and affordable First, the FEMA act would better account for localized but costly rural damage.
▶ 0:50:48Many co-ops serve remote, sparsely populated areas where catastrophic storms may not meet state or county thresholds for disaster declarations, leaving consumer members to bear the full cost of rebuilding. Second, the bill would reduce the time required to receive public assistance. For emergency work, it would establish 120day reimbursement timeline so co-ops can restore power and remove debris without facing years of uncertainty. and for permanent work.
▶ 0:51:14It would create a streamlined upfront approval process for long-term repairs to critical electric Third, the bill also directs FEMA to reimburse loan interest when co-ops must borrow to rebuild while awaiting reimbursement, including for past storms, helping prevent financing costs from being passed on to our consumer members. Fourth, the FEMA Act would help co-ops rebuild stronger and more resilient systems.
▶ 0:51:38Hazard mitigation funds allow utilities to strategically harden or move infrastructure rather than simply replace what was damaged. And finally, the bill adds protections against costly FEMA deobligations. Electric co-ops have a strong record of stewardship of taxpayer dollars, but arbitrary clawbacks years after a storm create uncertainty and they threaten affordability. NA greatly appreciates the committee's bipartisan work to include these five reforms in the FEMA act.
▶ 0:52:06Rural America deserves a FEMA that's fast, transparent, and effective. And Congress should pass the FEMA act quickly so rural families, farmers, and businesses are not left behind when the next disaster hits. Thank you, and I welcome your questions. Thank you. Uh, next up, we have Mr. Brian Waller, who is the vice president of uh Shelter Mutual Insurance Company, headquartered in Missouri, I might add, and he's here on behalf of the uh National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies.
▶ 0:52:36Thanks for being here,
▶ 0:52:37Chairman Graves, Ranky Member Larson, and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. As you heard, my name is Brian Waller. I'm vice president of external relations at Shelter Insurance based out of Columbia, Missouri. I appear today on behalf of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies or NAMIT. In May of last year, an EF3 tornado struck North St. Louis, destroying entire neighborhoods and causing more than 1.6 billion dollars in damage.
▶ 0:53:05FEMA officials have called the residential damage the largest scale the agency has seen since the Joplin, Missouri tornado in 2011, which remains the costliest single tornado in US history. for affected communities and victims in this and hundreds of other open declared disasters. FEMA is not just an idea. It is a lifeline for shelter and our fellow insurers. FEMA at its best is a trusted partner helping policy holders both before and after the storm.
▶ 0:53:33Unfortunately, more than a year after this storm, there is still much debris to be removed in North St. Louis. And we know that FEMA of recent years can do a better job serving the American people. Backlogs, delays, and duplicative processes have led to confusion and severe reputational harm at an agency that Americans need to know they can count on when disaster strikes. Secretary Mullen has taken important steps to correct the agency's course, and the president's FEMA review council has put forth thoughtful recommendations.
▶ 0:54:00However, legisl legislative action is needed for lasting transformation. So, we ask Congress to prioritize a more accountable and effective FEMA. I'm proud to be here today on behalf of the insurance industry to advocate for a reimagined FEMA that is committed to investing in mitigation before the storm. A simpler survivor experience and accountability for results. The FEMA act of 2025 that this committee overwhelmingly passed would accomplish these goals.
▶ 0:54:30Namek was pleased to endorse this legislation when it passed the committee in September and believe it a significant step in the right direction. Emergency management is most effective when all stakeholders are laser focused on helping affected communities by bending the risk curve before and after storms. The insurance industry has a long history of working to advance solutions that reduce risk to our nation's housing and infrastructure by promoting investment to harden homes and communities against increasingly severe weather.
▶ 0:54:58A reimagined FEMA should likewise prioritize preparedness, building and rebuilding more resiliently, emphasizing common sense and cost-effective practices, encouraging up-to-date building codes, and bolstering retrofit programs to improve our existing housing stock and infrastructure. When disaster strikes, a reimagined FEMA should be focused on the experience of victims.
▶ 0:55:21No American should be left in limbo for weeks, months, or even years over inconsistent paperwork requirements, especially after losing everything to a natural disaster. The FEMA contains practical and common sense solutions to many of the most pressing challenges facing the agency and American taxpayers. Six particular notable are restructuring and improving predesaster mitigation programs and establishing a formal process for peer-to-peer review. Establishing a task force to address the backlog of open disasters.
▶ 0:55:52Reducing impediments to prompt and effective debris removal. expediting permanent repair to public infrastructure, streamlining permitting and application processes, most importantly creating a universal disaster application for survivors, and numerous GAO reports to ensure continued We all know that when it comes to natural disasters, it's a case of when, not if.
▶ 0:56:15But as noted at the outset, your actions regarding the future of this agency will have effects that provide meaningful help to Americans in need for years to come. We commend your leadership on these reforms. It has been said that emergency management works best when it is state-led, locally executed, and federally supported. We believe the FEMA will strengthen those partnerships between federal, state, and local governments, as well as other stakeholders, all in the interest of better serving taxpayers.
▶ 0:56:45The final report from the president's FEMA review council appropriately identified the need for legislation to implement many of its recommendations. And the FEMA act tackles most of its most of the issues outlined in that As this committee works with the House leadership, the Senate, the administration, and other stakeholders toward a final legislative product, we encourage swift action and urge the House leadership to bring the FEMA Act to the floor for passage in this Congress. I thank you for your time and I look forward to answering your
▶ 0:57:17Next up, we have uh Mr. Chuck Chadoz and he is the vice president or one of the vice presidents, United States Chamber of Commerce. Thanks for being
▶ 0:57:29Chairman Graves, uh, Ranking Member Larson, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am Chuck Jadeovitz, vice president for environmental affairs and sustainability at the US Chamber of Commerce. I appreciate the committee's bipartisan work on the FEMA act and I'm pleased to be here alongside chamber members and coalition partners who share a common goal. Building smart, modern, resilient infrastructure so America is better prepared before the next crisis hits. The chamber's message today is straightforward.
▶ 0:57:58Preparedness is progrowth and house action to pass the FEMA act in short order is important in furthering progress. At the chamber, our growth and opportunity imperative calls on policymakers to embrace a national goal of at least 3% annual real economic growth. Sustained 3% growth means higher wages, more jobs, more stronger communities, greater competitiveness, and more opportunity for American families and businesses. It should also be a test for public policy.
▶ 0:58:29Policies that support growth should be advanced, and policies do not should be rethought. preparedness passes that test. A strong economy cannot be built on fragile foundations. Businesses cannot invest, hire or serve the communities where when roads are washed out, power is down, and local governments are forced to shift scarce resources from growth to recovery.
▶ 0:58:52Chamber research with All State and the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation found that for every dollar invested into disaster preparedness, there are $13 in reduced losses and economic savings. A follow-on report showed the cost of inaction. Every dollar not invested in resilience today can cost communities up to $33 in future economic activity. The lesson is simple.
▶ 0:59:20We can pay less before disasters happen or we can pay far more after they do. The FEMA act moves our common or moves our nation in the right direction by reinforcing preparedness and predesaster mitigation as central elements of national resilience. It recognizes that communities need predictable resources and stronger partnerships to reduce risk before disaster strikes. We need all the tools in the resilience toolbox to succeed.
▶ 0:59:48The chamber supports a system that is locally driven, state managed, and federally supported. State and local leaders like President Lee Shang know their communities best, but empowering local leadership cannot mean weakening the federal role. A strong federal partners essential to provide consistent funding, coordination across jurisdictions and support for reducing risks that exceed local capacity.
▶ 1:00:12Pred disaster mitigation must remain at the center of our shared prioritiz prioritize to uh to modernize FEMA. FE the FEMA A's formulab based approach offers a promising path forward to reliable funding for preparedness. The chamber also supports the improvements made in the bill that make existing programs more practical and easier to use. Hazard mitigation programs should be strengthened.
▶ 1:00:38Too many communities face complex applications, burdensome requirements, and limited staff capacity. The FEMA Act makes important progress by allowing funding sources to be combined, supporting project consolidation and improving permitting and environmental review. Speed and certainty matter in disasters. Finally, resilience is directly tied to housing affordability and family wealth. For many Americans, a home is often their largest asset. As Mr.
▶ 1:01:06Fugate said, "When a disaster destroys housing, families lose savings, workers are displaced, and employers face hiring challenges. Building and preserving more resilient and affordable housing protects families and strengthens local economies." Mr. Chairman, ranking me member Larson and members of the committee, Congress has a choice. Continuing paying more after disasters or invest smarter before they happen.
▶ 1:01:30The chamber urges the house to pass the FEMA act as soon as possible and preserve its focus on pre- disaster mitigation and public private coordination will save lives and property. Resilience is not just good public policy. It's an economic imperative. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I'm happy to answer questions.
▶ 1:01:50Thanks everyone for your testimony. Uh we're now going to turn to questions and I'm going to start off with uh Rick.
▶ 1:01:57Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, there's kind of three buckets to um to disaster. There's the predesaster mitigation bit, there's the immediate response bit, and then there's recovery and longerterm recovery bit. Those three parts the administration seems to want to focus strictly on. We'll help you with immediate response, but we're not going to help on long-term recovery. And for Pete's sake, we don't want to help at all to help you build resiliently so that the impact of a disaster is less than what it could have been.
▶ 1:02:28What we try to do with the FEMA act is say no, all three parts need to exist, but we need to change um uh we need to change how we get that how we get that done. And that's been kind of the focus and the push here uh for the FEMA act. Uh still we have problems. And so I wanted to ask um Mr. Fugate, this is the first question. FEMA is allowed to award up to for to survivors for home repair after disaster.
▶ 1:02:53The average award is about Um why why is the um average award such a small portion of what could be the maximum award in your experience?
▶ 1:03:05It's based upon need and that's a policy decision. Um I think this is one of the things that is clear in the Stafford Act when it was written it was never intended to make families whole and it was never intended to supplant the need for insurance. It was a safety net program. But as we've seen the crisis in insurance where more and more people are uninsured, not able to afford insurance. Renters don't generally have insurance.
▶ 1:03:30Um the program is based upon what we can determine when we go out there and assess them against the CFR, which is the regulations that were written to support this. And so many people hear the top number and assume that's what they're going to get and don't understand it's based upon actual losses in need. I would argue that that's semantics. The reality is even if they got the full amount, it ain't going to make them whole.
▶ 1:03:54And I think that's one of the things to reexamine when we're talking about the survivors is what exactly is the money supposed to do? Is it to make them whole? Is it to get them back in a home? Is it to provide housing assistance? I mean, think about it. We do temporary housing assistance. We'll spend $300,000 putting a trailer in there for 18 months. We could have rebuilt many homes for that. Maybe not with the granite countertops, but we could have done a good job. But I think this is one of the things you always run into is the friction.
▶ 1:04:23And this is within They don't want to reward people. They want to keep the cost minimal. They think they should be insured. And then the bureaucrats are stuck between one side that wants to make them whole and the other side that wants to say it was their decision, their responsibility, should have had insurance. And the bureaucrats have to figure that out. So yeah, sometimes we don't do a good job of it, but we're also dealing with in many cases the extremes.
▶ 1:04:51We shouldn't be paying and creating a hazard where people don't have insurance. But when when Tom Ridge wrote the Stafford Act, most homes were insured. Most governments insured their fire stations. Today, very few governments are insured. They're self-insured. So taxpayer pays for that loss. And increasingly, people cannot afford or get insurance. I'm from Florida. I know what it's costing and I live in the interior state and I know what it's costing.
▶ 1:05:18So I think a model that was based upon insurance this bill I mean if nothing else just being able to do the repairs and again it's only going to help those people that own their homes. It won't help the renters.
▶ 1:05:29Thanks Miss Shang. I'm a former county council member so I understand how tight budgets can be at the local levels. I get where you're coming from, but um how would the FEMA act, have you looked at how would the FEMA act would help your parish invest more of its money for mitigation instead of cleanup?
▶ 1:05:48I think one of the most critical elements for counties and local governments on the FEMA act is getting the upfront funds. you know, right now, and especially if you're a small county, sometimes I speak to my colleagues, they're afraid to even sign a debris contract because they know that is beyond their budget when they get a terrible hurricane happening. So, the upfront funds is critical. Right now, we're on a reimbursement model, which takes, as we said, years to happen.
▶ 1:06:13Um, but if we can move to a formula based upfront, give us those resources upfront, um, we can take that additional money and put it towards other needs. So when a community is broken, it's broken from the top to the bottom. That we have to start with clearing debris out of roads, uh families aren't in homes, schools are damaged, it is overwhelming amount of loss that we're facing at the local level. And then another disaster on top of that is the financial disaster and the budgetary disaster that we face that you don't see.
▶ 1:06:43It's not on the television cameras, but it is very real to local governments is not having the resources there. So the upfront payment um for the assistance is very very critical in this act for local
▶ 1:06:56Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
▶ 1:06:58Mr. Riselle,
▶ 1:07:01thank you, Mr. Chairman, and uh thank you for all our witnesses for being here today. I really appreciate it. As a native of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, I've seen firsthand in my former life as a law enforcement officer and local official how hurricanes, floods, and severe storms can be. Our communities are resilient, but they shouldn't have to spend years fighting uh federal bureaucracy to survive a disaster.
▶ 1:07:26Unfortunately, that's what's exactly what I've seen more than two decades after Hurricane Katrina. Communities in my district are still waiting on FEMA to complete projects and deliver on recovery commitments. And I know that they're not the not the only ones in this country. This is just something we we've got to get past. That's it's unacceptable. Disaster survivors and local governments should not have to wait decades for the federal government to act.
▶ 1:07:53Time and again, we hear the same complaints from local officials, emergency managers, and families trying to rebuild. FEMA takes too long to make decisions, too long to process applications, and too long to get communities the assistance Congress wants to give them. Delays drive up cost, slow recovery, and leave communities stuck in limbo. The problem isn't just that FEMA lacks the authority.
▶ 1:08:18It's that the system has become weighed down by unnecessary regulations, guidance, and paperwork. When disasters strike, we need an agency that can move at the speed of emergency, not at the speed of Washington. I'm encouraged by the efforts of the streamline and with all of you here today in FEMA's process to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy and empower states and local communities to lead recovery with strong federal support.
▶ 1:08:45Those closest to the disaster know what their communities need, and FEMA should be a partner, not an obstacle. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about practical reforms that will hasten recovery, improve accountability, and ensure uh disaster assistance reaches our communities faster. Mr. Fugate, in South Mississippi, we still have communities waiting on FEMA related projects from Hurricane Katrina, uh, which hit us back in 2005.
▶ 1:09:16From your perspective, sir, what are the biggest bureaucratic obstacles that keep projects open for so long? And what reform should make the biggest difference in getting these projects Well, it may sound flippid, but the biggest issue is preventing fraud, waste, and abuse.
▶ 1:09:33You know, all these regulations you hate, they came about because the IG found something and cited it and said, "We got to take the money So, you got to accept more risk for fraud and waste because what we're doing to prevent fraud and waste is costing us a fortune and it's not saving money. That's why I really appreciate the idea in this bill that we quit doing actual costs and just do estimates because I can go in there and if you got a fire station and it got destroyed and you don't have insurance, if you had insurance, you'd have gone and got an insurance adjuster.
▶ 1:10:03You'd have gotten your money and you'd been paid 30 to 60 days you're done.
▶ 1:10:07That's what this bill does.
▶ 1:10:08Good. It gets away from doing actual cost. Project worksheets, versioning. I didn't know you could version a worksheet. All in the name of only paying the actual cost for the federal taxpayer. Well, all that's costing the taxpayer a fortune to administer it. Just get and this is the other thing. Half the stuff that people say FEMA can't do. I did. Mitch Landry was all upset after one of the hurricanes because he was going to have to borrow money to make payroll. I said, "Well, we'll give you the money.
▶ 1:10:34You can't do that." I said, "Yeah, we can do an estimate." you know that FEMA can estimate debris and emergency cost and get the money there. We did it in 30
▶ 1:10:43Thank you.
▶ 1:10:44So what this bill does is it gives that authority in writing and it eliminates actual cost and makes it all debris. We should be doing debris as an estimate, not by the cubic yard or the lot.
▶ 1:10:58That's it.
▶ 1:10:59Give you the money, let you pick it up, make the decision.
▶ 1:11:02Thank you, Miss Shang. as a local official uh in Louisiana uh next to me. Uh you work hard uh directly with FEMA and after disasters, what parts of the FEMA's process create the most delays for your local government?
▶ 1:11:19I think similar to what Mr. Fugate is discussing, the initial process in trying to estimate things takes a lot of staff capacity. Um that you know we can manage okay in Jefferson Parish. we have to be we happen to be the largest parish in the state but for some smaller counties they just don't have the staff they don't have the expertise to navigate through some of these application processes and I think when we when we just make it much more simpler um and have the rules um on a formula based um I think that will greatly help
▶ 1:11:50uh local capacity to be able to navigate these issues
▶ 1:11:53and you know most all local officials and people they they just want to get back to life and uh you know anything that we can do to help you know that's exactly what we want to do and I want to be a part of the solution not the problem. So thank you all for those good answer. Thank you
▶ 1:12:09Mr. Gari Mr. Chairman. Thank you and for the witnesses. I'm really upset by all of you u because you keep coming back to something that I swear that I never pay any attention to and that's insurance.
▶ 1:12:29I spent eight years of my life as the insurance commissioner in California and the connection between the FEMA programs that you've been discussing and the insurance problems are so severe that we have to deal with both of them. And if we don't, we're not going to deal with either of them very very well. There are many, many ways. In 1990, we were looking at developing a national natural disaster insurance program. and we figured out how we could pay for that, how it could be done by the federal government.
▶ 1:12:59Hasn't happened yet. But until we connect these two, the insurance problem, which is discussed here, and which is a very, very real problem in California and really across the nation, we will not be able to solve the FEMA problem unless we consider FEMA to be the ultimate insurer, which is pretty much where we're headed. And in that regard, um, it's not a very good way to deal with it because it doesn't assess the risk at the outset.
▶ 1:13:30An insurance program properly structured can assess the risk and force the homeowner in this case to identic home. Very complex, but I'm going to put that on the table for my first I know minute and a half here. We've got to do both of these things. And I noticed a couple smiles from the insurers down there. Now, putting that aside, I'm going to go back to where I'm really not upset with all of you.
▶ 1:14:00You really did exactly what you're supposed to do. I want to go back to where FEMA is really um out of bounds, and that is the current FEMA program is being used to support the immigration enforcement by the federal government. This is wrong. It's contrary to law and it's creating a very profound problem. FEMA should not be assisting ICE.
▶ 1:14:29The FEMA staff reduced by 5,000 in the Doge cuts. What's left is now being used to um what run the uh detention facilities. now being used to set up the uh programs for the ICE agents to do a raid now in Maine and wherever else around the nation. This is wrong. It's contrary to law.
▶ 1:14:53And this committee has the responsibility of holding the Trump administration accountable for the misuse of FEMA and use of FEMA to carry out the various programs that the president wants on immigration enforcement. It's not that the immigration enforcement effort is short of money. Good lord, they haveund what 20 billion dollars to spend in the next couple of years. Bring FEMA back.
▶ 1:15:23This committee ought to demand that FEMA no longer be engaged with ICE in the immigration enforcement program. Let ICE take care of itself. And there's plenty of problems there. And I certainly share those concerns and would rally around. The second thing is the politicization of FEMA.
▶ 1:15:42It's been reported most recently in political on the 7th of this month that the Trump administration has singled out uh states that are Republican run, Republican senators, Republican governors, and provided them with immediate assistance. And those states that are Democratic senators, Democratic governors have been denied assistance.
▶ 1:16:09The politicization of FEMA by the govern by the president and his minions is absolutely wrong and this committee ought to hold the administration to account on that as well as to these other issues. It's got to stop. Now, I'd be happy to discuss with anybody here the insurance issues and how we might be able to deal with that, but that's offline and come to my office and I'll give you ideas that date back 30 years on how to deal with it.
▶ 1:16:39But the politicization and the misuse of FEMA by this administration is wrong. It is illegal and this committee has to hold the president and his programs to account. With that, Mr. Mr. Chairman, I beg you to do that, to force the administration to come here and to testify under oath how they are abusing FEMA in carrying out their immigration programs. I yield
▶ 1:17:09Mr. Webster.
▶ 1:17:12Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, Mr. Mat uh what is pre-staging or prepositioning and why is it critical for those activities to happen when perform when performing uh or getting ready to perform utilities during storm activities and why hasn't FEMA been willing to reimburse that
▶ 1:17:36pre-positioning is where we know a hurricane or a storm's coming and our job is to get the lights on as fast as we can and often what you want to do is you want to move crews into areas so they're ready to go right when the storm passes so we can start restoration work as soon as possible. Uh it's part of a process where utilities, the electric cooperatives have what's called mutual assistant where we bring line workers in from all over the country to go to these places where these natural disasters are happening. And if we can preposition in advance, we can get the lights on that much sooner.
▶ 1:18:05and for all the other impacts of a natural disaster, uh, having the lights back on is very helpful for dealing with all the other damage assessment and all the other recovery work that has to take place. So, prepositioning gives us a leg up in terms of getting the lights on faster and it should be a part of the uh, reimbursement program at FEMA. This legislation we believe puts in a position to make that happen. I think it's a legitimate part of how we do disaster recovery.
▶ 1:18:31I'm really glad you raised the issue because pre-positioning is a critical part of how we get the lights on as kindly as we can.
▶ 1:18:37Very much. So, parametric what is it? How does it how does it
▶ 1:18:47I may not be the expert on parametric modeling, but that was one of the recommendations of the president's review council. Um, we have concerns with that. uh we have concerns about an arbitrary model uh that may not be reflecting what is actual damage on the ground.
▶ 1:19:02Uh that's the way we ought to be looking at damage and we have situations where wind speed may not be where it triggers the model to say okay that qualifies reimbursement but you may have a combination of wind and flooding that creates huge damage to the electric infrastructure and we're going to have some model that says nope doesn't qualify you're out.
▶ 1:19:21That doesn't make sense to us and that's not in the FEMA act, but it is in the the review commission's report and we have concerns with that because we think it's going to create arbitrary situations where damage that should be subject to FEMA reimbursement is denied because of that
▶ 1:19:38So there there are some states that use it at the local level when they're reimbursements for natural disasters. But why Why is it controversial?
▶ 1:19:54Because when you take a a a a model that says based on x amount of miles per hour wind speed and that's going to trigger whether or not the uh disaster is eligible for recovery or not, that doesn't necessarily reflect what happens to a power line. Though a power line magically falls when it's 51 miles an hour and doesn't have 49 miles an hour. That that's the problem with this model. actual damage is how we should be making these decisions, not based on some model with some standard of what the wind speed was to say, okay, that's why you should pay for the disaster.
▶ 1:20:23So, how would it how would it affect um rural electrics or even electric co-ops and municipal utilities?
▶ 1:20:34Well, first of all, you're adding another element of uncertainty. uh you may very well put electric cooperators in a position where there's significant damage but the model says nope doesn't qualify and we're left as I said in my opening statement shouldering the burden where we are at cost utilities representing 92% of the persistent poverty counties in America we don't have shareholders to fall back on and we have very sparsely populated areas so you have several miles of electric line but not many people to spread that cost across because we're in these sparsely populated areas
▶ 1:21:04that's why we're eligible for FEMA participation in the first place. That's what Congress decided decades ago. And if we go to this model that has some arbitrary function says, well, even though you had all this damage, the model doesn't say it qualifies. I don't think that's what we're looking for here. I think we're looking for reasonable people to assess the situation, look at the damage, say, yeah, that qualifies. And so that's our resistance with the parametric with with the model that you're talking about.
▶ 1:21:26What what uh what other additional FEMA reforms would could be included beyond just expediting
▶ 1:21:38Well, I think that the uh the FEMA act uh has, as I'm five critical reforms that we think are important, including the 120 days for the initial uh assistance. Uh it has the opportunity for hazard mitigation funds in a in a more targeted way that make sense for building resilience systems. It allows for um interest reimbursement if electric co-ops are stuck for years waiting for um uh payment from FEMA and they acrewue significant burden there. Uh there are provisions in this bill that we highly endorse.
▶ 1:22:07We think it's the right step to take and we think the chairman and ranking member and the full committee have done a great job of looking at all these issues. Uh taking information from as the chairman said in his opening statement uh dozens and dozens of different stakeholders. It's a great way to make legislation in my opinion and that's why we're so uh supportive of the bill as it's written
▶ 1:22:27Thank you very much. Y back
▶ 1:22:30Mr. Stanton.
▶ 1:22:31Thank you very much, Chairman, and for holding this important hearing on the urgent need to pass the FEMA Act. This is a proud bipartisan committee and both Chairman Graves and Ranking Member Larson have long-standing commitment and have provided leadership in the effort to strengthen FEMA. Both of them know how important it is to help Americans in their darkest hours. And this why that's why this effort is very important.
▶ 1:22:55Recently, as ranking member of the economic development, public buildings, and emergency management subcommittee, I released an investigative report that details how the Trump administration and DHS leadership are misusing FEMA resources for ICE operations, jeopardizing FEMA's readiness and ability to respond to disasters. This important investigation found that FEMA personnel have been utilized to plan deportation raids and arrests, recruit new ICE and CBP officers, and manage day-to-day operations at detention facilities.
▶ 1:23:25Of course, FEMA was built on a promise to the American people. When disaster strikes, the federal government will be there. Unfortunately, that promise too often has been broken. Since the start of the current administration, the agency has lost more than 20% of its workforce, more than 5,000 key employees. Its training pipelines, key to ensuring readiness before disaster strikes, has been severed.
▶ 1:23:48Its disaster declaration process has too often been politicized, denying communities needed support, and its hazard mitigation programs have been dismantled. This is on top of the fact that personnel have been detailed for extended periods for immigration enforcement operations. Whether or not you agree with the current administration's mass deportation policy, this report makes one thing clear. We need an agency that is capable and ready to serve our constituents when they need it most.
▶ 1:24:15And that is less likely to happen if FEMA continues to remain inside of Department of Homeland Security. For administrator, former administrator Fugate, have you had an opportunity to review the investigator report I referenced?
▶ 1:24:29I've had a summary of it, sir. Do you think FEMA should help ICE coordinate arrests, raids, and deportations?
▶ 1:24:36Well, the question is, you gave that authority to the secretary under the Homeland Security Act. You got to change that.
▶ 1:24:44How would an independent agency, which is what the FEMA act proposes, protect employees from being pulled into non-staffford Act missions?
▶ 1:24:52Well, if you're not part of Homeland Security, then the secretary's authority to transfer staff wouldn't apply. But it went both ways. In Supererstorm Sandy, we transferred about 2,000 DHS employees to help us in that response, but these were always meant to be temporary. Um, in the Obama administration, we were tasked with supporting undocumented children. We had a crisis. They was backed up. Kids were in detention facilities never designed to hold children. They were designed to hold adults. And those we worked at the mission.
▶ 1:25:21We had the authority and authorization of the other components including health and human services. And that was a big problem with those because it was divided between two But the question is, would FEMA be better off being independent? I never thought FEMA should be in DHS, but when I testified at my hearing, I said yes. Because here's the other thing. You made the FEMA administrator an E2. Does anybody know what that means outside of the people that read the plumb book?
▶ 1:25:46The FEMA administrator is the same rank as the service secretaries, the EPA administrator, the SBA administrator, yet they're treated as a subcomponent in DHS. Secretary and deputy secretary are surprised to find out I was an E2 because they were trying to get all their components promoted to E3s. And somebody said, "Well, I don't think the administrator wants a demotion. Even the Department of Defense would have me summoned to go meet with assistant secretaries, which were in E5 and I was an E2." And I'm like, "I ain't going over there. Then come see me." It wasn't arrogance.
▶ 1:26:16But the thing I've learned is if you give us authority and we don't execute it, we lose it. And I think part of what we have done is we have diluted the post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act to recognize that the FEMA administrator is the same rank as the Navy Secretary. It's not treated that way in DHS.
▶ 1:26:33I I mean we I think in a bipartisan way we agree with that that this needs to be an independent agency with direct line to the president of the United States. It will save time on declaration uh emergency management uh proclamations. It'll save time in emergency response and make the whole process much quicker, which is exactly what the American people expect. Um do you think uh Mr. Fugate, if FEMA were to become an independent agency, would that help restore public trust in FEMA to operate effectively in response to
▶ 1:27:03No. I think FEMA executing the mission is what restores that trust. You know, when I got to FEMA, we were dealing with post Katrina and everybody says, you know, are you going to fail? You know, tell us you're not. I'm like, I can't tell you that. I have to execute. You'll determine if we failed or we didn't. Again, I I caution people just moving things around, reorganizing is not the answer. The answer is empowering FEMA, make sure they have the right e leadership and the tools to execute.
▶ 1:27:33But their ability to regain the public trust doesn't matter where they sit. It matters where they execute and how it's perceived by the public of doing the mission. Independently, I think, as you point out, it relieves a lot of the hurdles, but quite honestly, I worked under that system. I just cheerfully ignored most of it because the law said I worked for the president and I report to the president and the secretary was responsible for making sure I showed up to work and I did took my vacation time. Well, I didn't get vacation time. I was a political appointee.
▶ 1:28:02But the reality is I made it work because I've always been in that situation. But it is personality based. And so when you have a secretary in there that does not see the FEMA administrator as the principal adviser as the law says to the president, the National Homeland Security Council and the Secretary in that order and that I got there, we were routing declarations for the secretary's office. I said, "Why?" Well, that's the way they want it. I'm like, "I don't care. The law says I'm the principal adviser and I'm advising the president.
▶ 1:28:32I make a recommendation on a direct on to declare or not declare." To me, the law said that goes to the president. We changed it. Trust me, there are a lot of people at DHS and not so much the secretary, but all of the offices around there that really wanted to get into our business and I fought it. I just said no. I was arrogant and I was pragmatic and but I went to the law and I I knew that if we did not execute what the law said, we were going to lose that authority. So, I was a pain to a lot of people,
▶ 1:29:00but that shouldn't be the way it has to be. I'm overtime and that that's a really well-made point that uh moving things around could help reduce bure bureaucracy, but it's the people and the support from the president that makes all the difference. That's a good point. Thank you. I yield back,
▶ 1:29:17Mr. Perry. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to our panelist. I just want to kind of level set here and remind everybody that's listening to the hearing today that um under the pre regardless of all the wailing and nashing of teeth of the utilization of FEMA personnel under the previous administration FEMA personnel were used to bring people illegally across the border.
▶ 1:29:39And I remember in this committee room asking about the regional director for the Pennsylvania region being moved to the border for specifically that. So, let's just level set here and make sure that we have all the facts. This is not a one-way street. Um, and uh there are infractions that irritate both sides um to be considered here. I'm just going to turn to you, Director Fugate.
▶ 1:30:04In your written testimony, you say that HR4669 is the first significant effort in the Stafford Act to price disaster risk honestly rather than simply paying for it faster. And I think that's a quote. This is largely as a result of the sliding scale for the federal cost shares for disaster assistance based on state action or inaction in risk mitigation that is included in the FEMA act and was suggested by the president's FEMA review council.
▶ 1:30:31My understanding is that you proposed this idea during your time as FEMA administrator. I think it's good to see folks coalesing around this idea to get states to have some more skin in the game and to ensure that we do everything we can uh on the front end to mitigate the risk rather than throwing money at the problem after the fact.
▶ 1:30:51Can you take a moment to elaborate on the advantages of this proposal and what other ideas you might have to get to states to play a bigger role in disaster mitigation especially up front? Well, I'm going to take advantage since we have the international code council here is states that have strong building codes and build for the environment have less losses. States that don't have strong building codes and everybody says well it's red tape but we know that the stronger it is and this comes from the state of Alabama.
▶ 1:31:20The more you invest and they use a program that the uh institute of business home safety does fory where they build above the code the homes have done better and they've documented it and it saves the money. But I always want to remember this ain't FEMA's money. This is the taxpayers's money. Why should the taxpayer continue to pay for state and local governments who are making decisions to grow risk and there's no containment?
▶ 1:31:46Well, I agree with you. As a matter of fact, why should any government pay? I mean, what incentive do people have to buy insurance if the federal government's going to rush in and pay for everything that happens under the sun? Whether it's it gets too hot, it gets too cold, the water rises, the wind blows. I mean that's the attitude these
▶ 1:32:03and that's the challenge. That's why again when Tom Ridge wrote this it was based upon insurance was the primary model. Local governments insured their buildings. Most of the public had insurance. We have an insurance crisis. We're going to have to navigate that. But by using a sliding scale that says right now it's like I win the lottery. If I get to that magical threshold I get 75% of all my cost back to the first Do you know any insurance policy that doesn't have a deductible?
▶ 1:32:32Right. Exactly.
▶ 1:32:34Magic threshold. You get it all there.
▶ 1:32:36And behavior.
▶ 1:32:37And there's no containment. There's no incentive for states to make investments. There's no incentive to maybe we shouldn't be building there the way we're building and hoping somebody else will pick up the check because that's the taxpayer. That's federal taxpayer. So I think this bill by saying look, we're going to do this gradually. This is I I find it when we try to do the sudden shocks, it never works. But we're going to start out gradually. If you're not doing anything to manage your risk, you're just building wherever you want to, and you're not doing anything to protect the federal taxpayer from exposure, you're at 65%.
▶ 1:33:09If you are now doing those things, you're enforcing building codes, you're ensuring your public buildings, you're doing those things to reduce the cost to the federal taxpayer, you may get to That's the first time we've incentized reducing the cost to the federal taxpayer by before the disaster, not waiting for fun somebody else to pay for it, but taking the actions to build and manage their risk without necessarily depending upon the federal government as the first payee.
▶ 1:33:40I appreciate it. And with little time I have, we talked and I know you're I think I know your position on separating FEMA from the Department of Homeland, but can you speak to the importance of having an independent inspector general to keep FEMA honest about its efficiency and effectiveness? Sure. Well, I think an independent IG, it depends on what you want to look at. Um, separating FEMA, having the IG, it's a symbiotic relationship.
▶ 1:34:10If it's an accounting error, I agree with the IG. But one of the things you got to remember the IG does is they look at policies. And most of the time when they say FEMA takes the money back, it ain't FEMA. It's the IG finding. FEMA didn't fight policy and they should take the money back. Those clawbacks that are devastating. So I think if you're going to have an independent IG, they ain't you need to make sure they're not the IG for a standard agency. They're going to have to assume that there's more risk being made to get money out the door and that we're not running an accounting business.
▶ 1:34:40We're in the business of helping communities recover. So, if you're going to do an independent IG, they're going to have to have different rules of engagement.
▶ 1:34:47That's fine, but I mean, yeah, get the money out the door, but that mean that doesn't mean that just because we're getting the money out the door because there's a disaster that we just throw money away and accept that as the No, that's the cost of doing.
▶ 1:34:58But I I think this is the common issue. If you want to go fast, you're going to take risk. And if those risks were honest and there was no fraud, I think we have to accept there's going to be additional cost. But I'm pretty sure it's cheaper than what it's costing us to try to make sure we have no fraud and abuse. And we're sitting there counting by cubic yards. I mean, do you know how we do debris? We have a contractor picking up debris.
▶ 1:35:22Then we have to hire a separate contractor to monitor the contractor that's picking up debris to determine how many cubic yards are actually in the truck. Then we have to have the state monitoring the contractor, monitoring the debris company. Then we have to have FEMA monitoring the state. And then the IG comes in there and they say, "We're here to help." It would be a lot cheaper just to do an estimate and be off 5% either way and get it done and we'd save money because we wouldn't be doing all the
▶ 1:35:47I yield,
▶ 1:35:50Miss Strickland. Thank you, Chairman Perry and Ranking Member Stanton for holding this hearing. And thank you to Administrator Fugate for your unapologetic cander about what needs to be done to improve FEMA. I want to shift gears a bit and talk about FEMA's non-disaster grant programs. Part of FEMA's mission is to prevent and respond to imminent threatened or actual acts of terrorism.
▶ 1:36:18To carry out that mission, FEM administers critical public safety and preparedness grant programs, including the Homeland Security Grant Program, or HSGP. On June 24, 2026, FEMA and DHS published the fiscal year 2026 notice of funding opportunity that holds back 20% of funds if states do not submit to President Trump's voter election interference tactics.
▶ 1:36:44DHS and FEMA are now politicizing 200 million of federal funds to fight terrorism by forcing states to implement partisan election policies that in some case violate court orders, the constitution and elect existing state laws. And when we passed the FEMA act of 2025 into law, it did include not politicizing FEMA and how funds are distributed. So, Administrator Fugate, you served as FEMA administrator for almost a decade.
▶ 1:37:13Can you please explain what counterterrorism or preparedness objectives are served by conditioning these grants on compliance with potentially unlawful election
▶ 1:37:25It's furthering the administration's policies. It's as simple as that. FEMA is just a a tool here. I mean, if you ask FEMA, they wouldn't do it. They're being directed to do it. And right now, until the courts rule, they're giving the president a lot of executive authority. So the only way you're going to contain that is put specific language in the law that says you can't do that. And then the judges can look at that and go, "Yeah, that's not executive authority. Congress has clearly said no." But the Supreme Court and and many justices have ruled the president has executive authority.
▶ 1:37:54FEMA is not doing this because they think it's a good idea. They're being directed to do it. And this is the administration asserting their authority as they have it for policy. And until the courts determine which is right, it's going to happen. I think that um again I I I find that a lot of times FEMA gets thrust in there like FEMA is just a tool being used to advance an administrative policy.
▶ 1:38:15Don't yell at FEMA. It's just we're convenient, but don't yell at FEMA. This is what they're doing. And so far there's not been tremendous push back from the courts, especially the Supreme Court, that they don't have that executive authority.
▶ 1:38:27Yeah. Following up, um during your time as FEMA administrator, did you consider how a state runs its elections as criterion for awarding these funds? not for those funds, for recovery funds. Um, I dealt with it. I I seem to be the person that always had disasters in the middle of presidential elections, which we found out you cannot postpone. So, we actually supported the state of New Jersey and funding temporary polling sites, bringing in generators, tents, and other things to conduct the election. That's an appropriate use of FEMA.
▶ 1:38:57We supported, we didn't have anything to do with staffing it. We supported the state to carry out the election. That was eligible under protected measures. We did that in Florida during uh the the election in 2004 where we built polling stations because in Charlotte County there was nothing left to do polling in. So we had to build that. That's an appropriate role for FEMA.
▶ 1:39:18Yeah. So basically your job was to respond to a disaster to allow elections to be carried out as they're supposed to be by law.
▶ 1:39:26Yes, ma'am.
▶ 1:39:26Thank you. And I just want to, you know, end this by saying this is not just about FEMA and DHS exploiting a counterterrorism grant for a purpose unrelated to stopping terrorism. This is about an administration weaponizing FEMA for voter suppression. And as I often say, the United States does not have a voter fraud problem. We have a voter participation problem. In 2024, 90 million people did not participate in our elections. They chose not to vote. This is a bad solution. It does nothing to help promote democracy.
▶ 1:39:57It's unconstitutional and the safety of the American people are not enhanced because of these actions. I yield back, Mr. Chair. Thank you,
▶ 1:40:05Mr. Fong. thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh appreciate this uh important hearing. Um Mr. Fugate, I would like you to um I guess uh outline do you believe that uh moving to upfront project based grants will reduce the cost of rebuilding following a disaster?
▶ 1:40:31Yeah, that's an easy one.
▶ 1:40:33Can you uh can can you go into specifics in terms of how we can uh how and kind of give me some real world examples?
▶ 1:40:41Okay, let's use a fire station. Everybody gets a fire station. You know what a fire station is? It's a building, right? It's also a function. So, let's say you have a flood or a hurricane or a wildfire and the fire station gets destroyed. If you had insurance, what would be the first steps you would take? Contact the insurance. They send out an adjuster. They determine the building was destroyed. They look at the insured value. They write you a check. You go build a fire station. How hard is that?
▶ 1:41:06The current system is FEMA goes out there and first has to determine that the fire station was destroyed because of the disaster. Then they have to determine if there was any pre- disaster causes that would have increased the cost like deferred maintenance and stuff. Then they have to determine well what's the value of the building and contents and then what would it take to replace that and they write an estimate on that and that's a project worksheet but because they do actual cost they don't give them the money. The local governments now have to go get a contractor to go build the fire station.
▶ 1:41:36They have to get an estimate. They have to submit that to FEMA for being reviewed. Well they want to change because the station was too small. they want to build it bigger. Well, FEMA says, "We're only going to replace what was there. That's on you. We ain't going to approve that." But that's a change we have to approve on that. You can have as many as 10 versions on that worksheet getting to the final answer. And then you're reimbursing them. So, what the locals have to do is they have to borrow the money, issue a bond to go build that fire station. They don't have the cash and they generally don't have that much money sitting around.
▶ 1:42:06And this process will take the entire process of just getting to to approval a year or more and then up to five years of changes and everything else. It doesn't take 5 years to build a fire station. So by going to an estimate, here's how it would work. We get there, everybody agrees it's destroyed. Now, those of you that are concerned about fraud, waste, and abuse, here's what the thing requires.
▶ 1:42:27They have to get an engineer or architect of license in their state to put in their estimate of what that is because everybody's afraid, well, it won't be enough money or there'll be things they discovered later. I said, well, that's why you got them putting their seal on there because they have insurance and if they didn't get it right, that's where you get your money, not the taxpayer. We agreed to it. 75% of them, we issue it. We put it in Smart Link, it goes down, states got the money, they issue it to them. They now have the cash to go build the fire station. That's the difference.
▶ 1:42:53Can I uh we have a situation in in my district and maybe you can can shed some light into this where you know road gets washed out. It gets washed out every single time there's a flood. Um the community wants to build it to a higher standard but because of the the rules you have to build it to what existed pre um you know pre uh pre- disaster. Would it make sense to allow the community to to to to fix it permanently and and build it?
▶ 1:43:21Oh absolutely. And I think one of the things is is use looking at costbenefit analysis. I don't think we ought to be putting culverts back in anywhere. We ought to be doing box coververts. I've never seen a covert that you put in after a flood that survives the next flood. I mean, it's just dumb stuff we do to try to keep it cheap. We ought to be going in there and not looking at what the road was before. We ought to be looking at the function of the road and going, how much does it cost every time that road gets washed out? And that should be the basis of the estimates. Just like you're building that fire station.
▶ 1:43:50I had fire stations in Hurricane Charlie got wiped out in that storm. To build them back to the building code was stupid because they got wiped out being built to the building code. I need to build them for cat 5. They said, "Well, it's not worth the cost benefit analysis." I said, "What about the function of the fire station?" Oh, that's changes the
▶ 1:44:08So, I don't disagree. I But guess what? This is getting people to think differently. A road is not a construction project. It's a function. What is the cost of losing that function? Wouldn't it make more sense to spend 10 to 15% more to ensure the function is there after the disaster instead of fixing it again?
▶ 1:44:28That makes makes perfect sense to me. Mr. Mat, I wanted to ask you in your experience uh which regulations or policies could FEMA eliminate to reduce delays for utilities such as rebuilding poles, substations and transmission infrastructure after disaster has
▶ 1:44:42I think the legislation creates greater certainty in terms of time frame. uh the immediate for the initial assistance the 120day limit that would be a big help for us in terms of moving quickly with greater certainty when we're trying to repair storm damage. I mean some of these repair projects like building a fire station we've heard that takes time. We want the electric system up immediately if we can. And so the ability to move quickly to make quick decisions that's in all of our interest to have the lights on for people when they're dealing with all the other impacts of the disaster.
▶ 1:45:12Thank you for that. I'm I'm running out of time. Mr. Chair, I yield back. Thank you for the panel.
▶ 1:45:17Miss Sykes, you're right.
▶ 1:45:20Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to the ranking member for holding this hearing today. As we are in the midst of disaster season, many Americans are concerned if that if disaster strikes in their communities, uh the support that they need to survive and rebuild may not be available to them. Two years ago, my community in Northeast Ohio was hit by back-to-back storms in a three-day span that caused widespread flooding.
▶ 1:45:43I led a letter with the bipartisan delegation from Northeast Ohio calling on the governor uh to reach out to FEMA for emergency assistance. During this hour of dire need, my constituents turned to the federal government to help rebuild and FEMA was there to deliver and for that we are grateful. Uh that is why I'm deeply concerned about the cuts that are being made by the Trump administration during the president's second term uh drastically curtailing FEMA's ability to respond to other communities in this in crisis.
▶ 1:46:13Under this administration, FEMA's preparedness and mitigation grants have been severely delayed or canceled altogether, failing to give states the resources they need to prepare for disasters, hire staff, and harden the infrastructure uh that would keep Americans safe. Also, since January 2025, disaster declaration requests from Democratic governors have been approved at a rate of 23% compared with 89% for Republican le states, clearly showing preferential treatment.
▶ 1:46:42And I've heard from many of you in your testimony about the impact of delays, but uh didn't hear a whole lot about the impact of denials for these Democratic states. Politicizing disaster assistance hurts American families. And to make matters worse, a recent report by the subcommittee by one of the subcommittees on this full committee also found that DHS is siphoning FEMA resources to support ISIS's deportation campaign, diverting essential resources away from FEMA's disaster response.
▶ 1:47:12So in a word, FEMA is a disaster. In a recent raid on Ohio Voting Rights Organization, DHS agents raided the organization's office in Northeast Ohio and went to volunteers homes across the state to question them without a warrant. This is an example of voter suppression, intimidation, but also an egregious misuse of DHS resources in my home state that we still don't have an accounting for. Um, and so I can't help but notice that there are no current FEMA employees or administrators with us today.
▶ 1:47:41And I am sure that is not a coincidence. And I imagine, Mr. Fugate, that is why you are so popular today uh to stand in and speak for those who refuse to or could not or for whatever reason not here to answer questions on behalf of the American public. But glad that you're here. Um but I do want to ask you, what is the imper operational impact of cutting off staff and siphoning resources from FEMA to ICE uh for ICE? And how will this loss impact FEMA's readiness to respond to a disaster?
▶ 1:48:12It's all very subjective how you look at it. Now, I go back to the original uh issue. You gave the secretary this authority in the Homeland Security Act.
▶ 1:48:21I did not give the secretary that
▶ 1:48:23and that's the problem. you've given discretion and when you have discretion it can be used for good and bad for things you don't agree with but they have the discretion that I think either making FEMA independent or being more specific in the language around FEMA limiting or eliminating that but until you do that you've given them that whether you agree with it or not they have that authority what you would have to do to demonstrate they broken the law is you gave them percentages they can move and if they're moving
▶ 1:48:54them at a greater percentage or they're violating the economy act which means they're spending money they weren't authorized or appropriated for. But until you get there and you gave the secretary authority to move money around, I mean in my administration when we did our budgets, I ended up losing money to go pay for a security cutter for Coast Guard. So as long as there's discretion, it can be used for good or for things you don't agree with.
▶ 1:49:18Thank you for that. But that was not what I was uh inquiring of you. It was whether or not that is a good use of And that is not suggest
▶ 1:49:26has FEMA not been able to respond to a disaster because of that. And the answer is no. But we haven't had a big disaster. So I don't know.
▶ 1:49:32Well, I I think that there that is certainly up to interpretation as 89% of uh Republican states are even getting a disaster declaration while 23% of Republican or excuse me, Democrat states are not. So I think perhaps the premises that you are basing that analysis on are flawed. Uh you did mention FEMA becoming an independent agency.
▶ 1:49:53Uh, so there is an attempt to do that and I've also heard you talk about in your testimony today the need for FEMA to take more risks at the expense of fraud, waste, and abuse. And considering this current administration, do you think that they would do that in order to be more responsive to the American public?
▶ 1:50:12Yeah, I try to get past the talking points and the rhetoric and all the noise out there. And I I I got to this point where I said, "What I've heard is they want to get the money down with the least amount of overhead. How do you do that?" I think this bill gives them that tool. You do the estimate, you get them the money. I think what they're really, and this is something I don't think anybody's been disagreeing with, is why does it take decades in the cost to administer that dollar? It's costing in many cases more than that dollar.
▶ 1:50:42Well, some of it are is because the president is refusing to help people who are in need. So, I thank you for your testimony. I'm really sorry that one of your colleagues from uh the current FEMA are not here and they're leaving you to hold the bag at the expense of the American public. Thank you for being
▶ 1:51:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, uh Mr. Mat, I was just sitting here thinking, I know uh we got redistricted, but I still think I can claim that I've got more electric co-ops in the 10th district of Georgia than the other districts uh that that represent Georgia. Uh and proud of it. But uh I want to go over some things with Hurricane Helen. As you know, Hurricane Helen and and and many other recent storms have uh taken a serious toll on on Georgia.
▶ 1:51:28Uh, in fact, uh, Georgia's Electric Membership Corporation, uh, outages from Helen totaled about 435,000 customers. Uh, one of the hardest hit co-ops in my district was Washington EMC, which had 86% of its members out during an extensive restoration effort. It's my understanding the co-op had about $16 million in Helen damages alone, which is is a lot of money and far more costly than previous storms.
▶ 1:51:58One of the improvements in the FEMA act over the status quo is getting these reimbursements back to co-ops and counties and cities a lot faster. Can you talk about how some new timelines and deadlines for FEMA would be helpful for my constituents back home in
▶ 1:52:15Sure. I appreciate that. And uh Georgia incidentally has more consumers served by electric cobraas than any state in the country. So I'm not surprised you have a lot of cooperative members in your district as well. Um Helen was a significant storm and affected many states, Georgia being one of them. And the damage was severe. Uh $16 million may not sound a lot to a large investor owned utility, but for electric cooperative at a local level, that's a lot of money.
▶ 1:52:40And so I appreciate you raising that as a specific example and making these decisions about moving ahead, getting the public assistance grant quickly. That's how we get started and this legislation creates a 120-day timeline to make that happen. That will be very helpful for electric cooperatives in terms of reducing risk uh allowing them to move forward with what they need to be doing which is restoring power. Uh the second issue is for the longer term uh components of uh of funding.
▶ 1:53:07Uh there are times when co-ops are stuck for years holding uh uh loans to cover the cost before they get uh reimbursed by FEMA and the interest continues to acrue and this legislation allows for uh interest reimbursement to be part of FEMA reward in the future. Now historically FEMA has done that in some cases but it's been really inconsistent where loan interest is reimbured and where it isn't and this legislation creates greater certainty uh in that context and that will be a significant risk reduction for electric cooperatives as well.
▶ 1:53:35So, those are a couple of the items that are going to be really helpful for those circumstances.
▶ 1:53:39Yeah. And you know, I I toured uh the 10th district and even outside the 10th district when Hela hit and just the massive undertaking, the setting up of base camps of of co-ops moving in to help and the teamwork. Uh it's it is a huge undertaking and a very expensive undertaking to make sure that people get their power back on in a timely manner. So, and and it was a good job.
▶ 1:54:02No question. Those are linemen that come from all over the country to come and help from other electric co-ops. It's one of the hallmarks of the electric cooperative movement is this mutual aid where when disaster strikes, we go help each other out. And so Georgia had a significant participation from folks all over the country to come and help restore the power.
▶ 1:54:17Yes, sir. And that leads into my second question for Mr. Fugate Fugate, I'm sorry. I I think I pronounced that right. Uh we have also heard of situations where FEMA required contractors uh to provide to the EMC that FEMA is auditing auditing their pay rates for their employees before FEMA would reimburse the EMC for using a contractor. Uh in what world is a contractor who competes with EMC's and IUS for linemen, are they going to want to provide their pay rates?
▶ 1:54:47Well, it's actual cost, sir. That's the problem. We got to have the actual cost. You got to submit the documentation. Doing estimates gets around that.
▶ 1:54:59Okay. But I I'm sure you see my point though, right?
▶ 1:55:03Oh, no, sir. I understand perfectly. But you want FEMA to do actual cost. We need the numbers.
▶ 1:55:08Do an estimate. FEMA don't need the
▶ 1:55:11Okay. All right. Well, I appreciate and I you'll back. I think I
▶ 1:55:17Miss Shelton. Thank you uh Mr. Chair and thank you uh Ranking Member Larson for uh holding this really really important meeting. I can't really think of anything uh more pressing right now than um a hearing entitled uh making sure reforming FEMA ensuring the nation's disaster readiness works for Americans.
▶ 1:55:44Um just going quickly down the line you know just to clarify Mr. Fug, are you currently employed by FEMA?
▶ 1:55:52No, I'm a
▶ 1:55:53uh Shang.
▶ 1:55:56No, Madison.
▶ 1:55:58No, you're not. Okay, let's just keep let's just No. So, no one currently uh working for FEMA is here to talk about how we reform FEMA. I am so grateful to all of you for coming and helping us to do that. But this is a critical point. The American people send us here to Washington to conduct critical oversight of this administration and we need to be able to hold the administration accountable for failures here.
▶ 1:56:26We have had once in a lifetime flooding in my home state of Michigan. I want to thank you again for being here today, but that point just needs to be reiterated. Severe weather events will not stop. Our communities have to be resilient and we cannot wait any longer. In April of this year, Michigan was struck by extreme severe weather causing flooding, tornadoes, and widespread damage.
▶ 1:56:52The National Weather Service issued a record number of flash flood warnings uh and flood advisories. A total of 62 of these advisories for Michigan in April alone. This extreme weather caused seven river gauge sites to reach major flood stage and four sites set new record crests. Fortunately, the state of Michigan has worked with federal partners and the president um issued a major disaster declaration. The process of rebuilding is underway, but the progress is slow.
▶ 1:57:22Uh Mr. Masson, how would the FEMA act of 2025 mitigate the risk of future damage to Michigan's electric grid uh during storms like these?
▶ 1:57:31Would mitigate it because it places greater emphasis on doing pre- disaster funding for mitigation to harden systems. And uh the electric side that could mean a a variety of things. Be it burying more lines underground, be it hardening substations to prevent uh damage from high wind. And so the FEMAC creates a set aside specifically for rural areas for the prehazard or pre- disaster mitigation. That would be very helpful.
▶ 1:57:55The second thing it does is it addresses the issue that was raised earlier about the road that gets washed out and they have to be required to rebuild it exactly the same way. This legislation allows for more latitude to rebuild uh and not build it just the way it was where it's in the same flood plane. Move move move the poles a couple hundred yards one direction the other get out of the way. That creates more resilient system as well. So this legislation has a couple of components but really position electric cooperators to be able to withstand damage in the
▶ 1:58:21Yeah, thank you. Um agree completely proud to co-sponsor it. We hope Congress uh gets on board with this full committee uh and championing it. Uh, one thing the American people might not fully realize is that when actual uh, employees and representatives of FEMA come to hearings like this, we can engage on critical legislation, they can take it back and they can champion uh, making sure this legislation gets back.
▶ 1:58:44So, I I I I need to just continue to put that in the record how how important it is not to uh, do anything to undermine you all coming here uh, and your your great testimony. Um, so in addition to the flooding I just mentioned, Michiganders are still uh dealing with unprecedented 2025 m March ice storms which impacted electric co-ops in the state, including in my district. Um, this storm was a huge shock to Michigan and I'm grateful uh that this co-op had access to public assistance funding that was available to them. Mr.
▶ 1:59:13Masson, I want to come back to you again. It's my understanding that the FEMA act would provide for loan interest acrewed as a part of the ice storm. Um, can you touch on again just why that is so such an important part of the FEMA reform?
▶ 1:59:25Big issue and you like Great Lake Energy is one of the co-ops that's affected and so much of their system was taken down and their loans right now are about 10 million year in interest that they're acrewing. So this just goes directly to the rateayer and uh this is a disaster where it took a while to get the disaster declaration from FEMA. I'm sure you're well aware of that. Ultimately, it did happen in terms of all the categories, but the reimbursements have not come yet and so that interest continues to acrue. As I said earlier, sometimes FEMA has reimbured loan interest, sometimes it hasn't.
▶ 1:59:53This legislation is going to make it much more much more straightforward where loan interest is accured and paid for by
▶ 1:59:59Yeah, thank you. Appreciate you all being here genuinely. Thank you so much. I yield back.
▶ 2:00:05Mr. Barrett,
▶ 2:00:06thank you, Mr. Chairman. appreciate the panel for being here today and uh the uh cander and insight that you're uh providing us on the uh committee today and I also hail from Michigan so appreciate the uh remarks that you made. think uh it's important uh one of the things that I felt was really critical in the reforms that we put forward last year through this committee was that fact that infrastructure can be not built to the exact same specs as it was when it was damaged but rather be forward-looking into
▶ 2:00:36making better infrastructure decisions uh so that we're not you know finding ourselves in the same position on a repetitive basis. I think anytime we're dealing with infrastructure, the cost of that is balanced between resiliency and the cost that comes with that. And those two sometimes work in uh in opposite directions. But I think spending a little bit more money and doing things a little bit more thoughtful often results in a far better um outcome overall.
▶ 2:01:08Um, I had heard about uh places that were kind of more significantly prone to natural disasters where they had above ground power lines and they'd get knocked down every so many years and then we'd come through and we'd put them back up on the poles and then it would happen again because we couldn't get federal approval to just bury them underground. And so I think that alone is going to have a significant quality of life improvement and resiliency for the people of this country that expect that to to happen.
▶ 2:01:36Sometimes I think about um the laws of physics and the laws of nature versus the laws of man. We have jurisdiction over the laws of man here in this committee and here in this Congress. We can't change the weather, but we can, I think, make better decisions for how we confront that when it does happen and not put ourselves in a position of making things worse. Um did have a few questions. Uh Mr. uh Chadovitz, did I say your name correctly? I pronounced right. Close enough. All right. Thank you.
▶ 2:02:05Um I uh I'm sorry I wasn't able to be here for your opening remarks, but um I know you talk about resiliency and kind of preventative nature of things being an important and critical piece of this. Uh not directly under the jurisdiction of this committee, but certainly in front of us as members of Congress is this issue of housing affordability and the ability to get people into homes. We're short the number of homes that we need for the number of people that that have demand for homes.
▶ 2:02:34And that's become a very critical concern for all of us. And um one of the challenges with that I think is we talked a little bit here on this panel about the building codes and building to the you know the next highest level of building code that evolves over time. But within that is sometimes things that are not related to resiliency. They're related to um energy efficiency or other things like that. Can you speak to that trade-off a little bit?
▶ 2:03:03Because I think we want resilient homes that are not going to be, you know, vulnerable to natural disaster without overregulations and things unrelated to that resiliency that are going to drive up the cost of homes and price out ordinary Americans.
▶ 2:03:20Well, thanks so much for the question. I really appreciate it. And and I'll go back to how I focused on the economic growth argument for resilience and I'll turn to Mr. Fugate mentioned the the Alabama study and their specific numbers that for building to the fortified standard would would save in claims about 105 million in that uh in that area and then reduce the uh the the amount of deductibles that homeowners would have to pay.
▶ 2:03:50And so if you're building to those those higher standards, you are getting the economic payback. That also is very consistent with the the the study that we we talked about before. $1 invested in preparedness gives you $13 in reduced losses and economic savings. That doesn't mean that you're going to eliminate those losses, but for income, GDP, and jobs, that's going to mean more uh communities are able to respond and recover more quickly. And the same goes with homeowners.
▶ 2:04:19I think there's a good analogy there.
▶ 2:04:21Sure. Sure. And I think that resiliency and maybe sturdiness of a home or a building, whether it's public, you know, a public municipal building or whether it's an an individual home is is one aspect certainly, but um you know, I have concerns that we're layering on additional um burdensome regulations unrelated to the resiliency of of a structure.
▶ 2:04:44Is that, you know, is that something that you think we can parse through and make sure that the regulations um that we are asserting are ones that are actually to designed to make homes more uh resilient but not unaffordable for people.
▶ 2:04:58Well, really important point in the FEMA act is the uh is the permitting reform measures there that will allow you to repair and recover uh homes more more quickly and that eliminates the delays that that are typically found when you're looking to rebuild rebuild a home and that that will help homeowners get back in their home more quickly.
▶ 2:05:19Yeah. Well, thank you. Well, I am out of time. I yield back, but appreciate uh all of your insight. Thank you,
▶ 2:05:25Miss Freriedman. Uh, thank you to the chair and ranking member for bringing us together and I want to thank the panel for being here to talk about how we can reform FEMA so that it can better serve our communities in the wake of natural disasters. Many of my constituents continue to feel the effects of the 2025 California wildfires. Uh, we are still seeing people struggling to rebuild. Their benefits are running out. They can't stay in their rentals any longer.
▶ 2:05:53It's really uh been very very challenging. Um Mr. Fugate, in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster, we saw that many families relied on charitable contributions uh from their churches, from GoFundMe pages. It was pretty common that people were asking for contributions to try to stack on top of the limited amount of money that they get from FEMA.
▶ 2:06:14But unfortunately, a lot of these families were surprised later to find out that FEMA deducts in many cases those charitable deductions from the award that they were getting for disaster recovery. In some cases, people were being deemed um uh unable to receive any money from FEMA because they had gotten charity um uh contributions through friends and family. This of course is extremely difficult for people to hear. Uh also the people who contributed realized that they weren't really contributing to victims.
▶ 2:06:42They were basically contributing to FEMA at that point because it was get taking FEMA out of their responsibility of supporting the victims. Very confusing for people as they were trying to find help. Uh during your time as FEMA administrator, did you or your staff ever encounter a situation in which a disaster victim experience this kind of confusion as they sought to receive FEMA relief uh due to them receiving charitable contributions?
▶ 2:07:09Not specifically, but it happens. Um, I think, you know, I've been asked this question and it really comes back to it's in the law, non-duplication of benefits. So, when you do a strict interpretation of that, it means any assistance. I think we ought to scrap it and just go the only thing we're not duplicating is your homeowners insurance because quite honestly, even if you got the full amount of FEMA, which we already heard, you rarely get there, it ain't making people whole. So, I think we just get rid of the nonsense first. You know how much it's costing the to go out there and find that? Somebody got $5,000.
▶ 2:07:40So, we're gonna How much did it cost us to find the $5,000? Are you kidding me? Just make it clear. The only duplication of benefits would be homeowners insurance. I would even go so far as to look at other federal programs and go I'd be very cautious about making those duplication of benefits. I would just make it you got insurance, fine, let the insurance and then we go there. That's clear. everything else.
▶ 2:08:07I'm glad it's not even worth accounting for it and we're not making people whole. Why are we putting up impediments, but the strict interpretation of the law is the law.
▶ 2:08:16No, I totally agree. And and I did a press conference where I had victims stand next to me talking about how they didn't get FEMA money because their friends were kind enough to reach into their own pocket and contribute to them because they knew that that FEMA money was not going to make them whole. They were not going to be able to rebuild. They weren't going to re replace their personal items. And so people were helping them and instead it ended up costing them and it doesn't make any
▶ 2:08:38Yeah. I introduced a bipartisan bill called the Don't Penalize Victims Act, which is bipartisan because this is something that I think we all understand how how, you know, insane that law is. Um, and uh, I think it's imperative that the House pass the FEMA act because that bill that I that I wrote and that I received bipartisan support for is now in this FEMA relief act so that we will no longer be penalizing people because their neighbors are generous, good people.
▶ 2:09:08Um, we're going to allow them to still receive uh, the limited amount of money that they receive. Um, another question for you. Um, while you were FEMA administrator, states across the country experienced devastating wildfires. And, um, I just want sort of yes or no questions because I know I only have a minute left now because we both got very passionate about the last one. Do you recall President Obama failing to submit a supplemental funding request to Congress when necessary in the wake of a natural disaster?
▶ 2:09:37Do you recall President Obama delaying or denying FEMA aid from communities in need? Only one I really know was he denied Illinois because he was in the state legislature. He said, "Yeah, they met the threshold, but they got more enough money that doesn't exceed their capabilities to manage it. But in general, it was always, did it meet the threshold? Did it demonstrate it exceeded the state's capability and we did it.
▶ 2:09:57We also said no a lot to a lot of Republicans and Democrats because I took those calls as well." So in your professional opinion, is there any disaster rep response rationale that would justify rejecting legitimate, like you said, legitimate requests from states just because they voted for one party over another?
▶ 2:10:14Unfortunately, the law gives the discretion to the president and never precluded that. Nobody ever anticipated you'd weaponized the disaster
▶ 2:10:22but the law says the discretion of the president. And again, Obama used it to turn down one that we had recommended because he he knew personally that they didn't meet that criteria. So he said
▶ 2:10:32Right. Because it and it was a state that he had served in.
▶ 2:10:35As well. Uh so I want to thank you. It's it's clear that President Trump has made unprecedented efforts to politicize disaster relief and it's resulted in a delay of relief to Americans in need, not just in Los Angeles, but across this country. It's unamerican. It's certainly not in the spirit of the law. And I I thank you for being here today.
▶ 2:10:56Mr. Taylor. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Owens. Yes, you slipped in on me.
▶ 2:11:03Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, thank you first of all for holding this hearing. I represent Utah's fourth district. This hearing comes at a critical time for us. Utah's having one of the worst wildfire seasons in our history. Over 400 fires, nearly 3350,000 acres burned uh more than the last 5 years combined. The Cottonwood fire alone burned 27,000 acres in a single day and threatened over 300 foot homes in be near Beaver.
▶ 2:11:31I want to thank FEMA for stepping up quickly with a fire management assistant grant to support our firefighting efforts in that area. But this is but this experience has also shown us where the system can better work for the people closest to these disasters. our local firefighters, uh, county uh, emergency managers and and who know their terrain and communities best.
▶ 2:11:53That's the spirit behind the FEMA act, making sure disaster response is locally executed, state managed, and federally uh, supported so we get the the the help to the people faster and more effectively. I look forward to to the hearing from our witnesses today and how to get FEMA out of out of its own way and get the help to the people who need it most, including the firefighters and families back in Utah. Mr.
▶ 2:12:16Fujette, um, in your experience running FEMA, uh, how well does the current fire management assistant grant program actually work in real time during fastmoving fires like Gotenwood? And are there and are there structural changes in the FEMA act that would speed up this process? You know, the fire management assistant grants us that discretion to the FEMA administrator. We delegate that to the regional administrators. That works pretty good, but it's really designed about the firefighting cost and what we would call category B.
▶ 2:12:44Historically, most wildfires had heavy insurance. Most people had homeowners insurance, but that's changing. I think one of the problems we're running into at FEMA or FEMA's running into is when the fire management assistance grants can only address the response cost, but now we have the utility. You know, the poles got burnt down in the co-op. We have the uninsured homes. We have the costs that go beyond what we would call category B. And that I think is something that's changing. We're seeing more major presidential disaster declarations for the wildfires.
▶ 2:13:13The whole intent was the of the fire management assistant grants was to eliminate that need. But I think we're seeing a changing environment where we're having more extreme fires. Insurance is now less of a tool for homeowners. Many of them now cannot afford it or cannot get it. It's being cancelled. And so we're seeing the federal taxpayer having to pick that up. So I would I would continue to look at getting money quickly to jurisdictions to fight the fires to support the extreme cost that exceed their annualized firefighting cost is a key tool.
▶ 2:13:44Um but I think wildfires are going to become more of a major presidential disaster declaration because of the unmet needs that FAS don't address.
▶ 2:13:52Thank you. uh and FEMA the FEMA act emphasizes local executed state managed and federal supported uh from your experience what does that actually look like in practice uh for a wildfire versus hurricane
▶ 2:14:06it's the constitution I never knew why it was an issue all power is not reserved to the federal government belong to the states and the people responding to disasters is the state's responsibility it's in their constitution so I've never had a question that we should not be supporting them we're not running it there you are but when it comes to Many states are now struggling with we used to have wildfire seasons.
▶ 2:14:27There's no wildfire season in California. It's a bad weather day we have wildfires in California. Um I think we're seeing and this is one of the things that we never got to but I think we're seeing and people can debate climate all they want to. I'm just saying it's changed folks and the system we built ain't working. We're getting more frequent events that are occurring closer together without the the time we had to recover from the last one. Wildfires are becoming so extreme now that the systems we've always depended upon and built are breaking.
▶ 2:14:56I think this is one of the things I really appreciate about the fixing FEMA bill. We didn't talk about climate change, but we're addressing the issue that disasters are getting worse faster in a way that states and local governments are not able to budget or compensate for and it's giving us more flexible tools to deal with the more extreme events.
▶ 2:15:11Thank you. I I need to ask the last question. Uh, Miss Mat, uh, many of the communities in my district are served by rural electric co-ops. When wildfires take out utility infrastructure, how well is FEMA currently set up to help rural co-ops rebuild quickly? Uh, and and where does the process fall short?
▶ 2:15:29Look, I think that anytime electric uh, infrastructure is damaged, whether it's a wildfire or any other natural disaster, the key is to get the lights on as as safely and quickly as possible. uh the FEMA act is going to give greater certainty how electric cooperation go about doing that because the public assistant the initial public assistance has to be done within 120 days. It removes that uncertainty for co-ops about having the resources to go in and make those repairs.
▶ 2:15:53So uh we fully endorse this bill because of that and other provisions that are going to make uh life better for electric co-ops in responding to these disasters.
▶ 2:16:01Thank you. Thank you so much. I yel
▶ 2:16:05Miss Gillan.
▶ 2:16:07Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. I represent New York's fourth congressional district, which is a district on the southshore of Long Island, where flooding continues to be a serious threat to many Long Islanders. Uh, as you mentioned, Mr. Fugate, supertorm Sandy devastated Long Island, causing billions of dollars worth of damage. When flooding hits our major roads, it doesn't just disrupt traffic flow, it interferes with emergency response along our critical evacuation routes.
▶ 2:16:35As we deal with rising sea levels and stronger, more frequent storms, we must provide the coastal communities that I represent with the federal resources they need to enhance our resiliency and protect our residents and our property. That is why I was proud to to secure the inclusion of my amendment in the FEMA act of 2025 during last year's markup.
▶ 2:16:56My amendment would require that the FEMA administrator report to Congress on the national need for major flood resiliency investments to safeguard key travel corridors and to issue recommendations to Congress on ways to reduce flooding and to secure our roadways. Mr. Dr. Fugate, as a former first responder and former administrator of FEMA, how important is it to the safety and well-being of Americans, particularly those in coastal communities like in my district, that the federal government invest in flood resiliency along our major travel
▶ 2:17:29Well, it's like asking, should the lights be on? It's it you got to have it. If I can't get there, I can't respond to it.
▶ 2:17:35roads are are critical infrastructure just like power. Um, but we have history here. We tried to do this in the Obama administration. Just get everybody to build two foot above base flood elevation. That wasn't a big deal. It got reversed. It got put back in. It gets reversed. We got to quit building for the last hundred years. I mean, the American Society of Engineers has standards. It's based upon the hundred years of the past. What in God's name is the past looking like helping us going forward if everything's a record- setting event?
▶ 2:18:03So, we got to get past this idea that we're building it back the way it was and build it for future risk. That means we're going to have to overdesign and over build to what the engineers say, well, that's not a requirement. Going the function of the road is the function of the road. Just being cheap about putting it back means we're going to be putting it back multiple times. I mean, I've actually seen people arguing over a 24 in or a 36 in covert. I'm like, are you kidding me? put in a box covert.
▶ 2:18:34Go big on this. Quit doing incremental fixes because as a federal taxpayer, I'm tired of rebuilding the same roads over and over again because we build them to the last standards, not what we need to build them to.
▶ 2:18:48Thank you. Um, as FEMA administrator, Mr. Fugate, you also oversaw the AY's preparedness grant programs, including the nonprofit security grant program, which as you know provides essential funding to protect synagogues, churches, mosques, and other houses of worship across Long Island and across our country that are now facing even more heightened risks of attacks. Uh, first, I'm concerned because FEMA has still not awarded I know we don't have anybody from FEMA here today.
▶ 2:19:16We have only former FEMA uh administrators. I'm concerned that FEMA still has not awarded fiscal year 2025 nonprofit security grants on a timeless b on a timely basis leaving vulnerable communities waiting. And second, while FEMA recently announced the fiscal year 2026 process, it gave states less than 30 days to review and submit all their applications. And as a result, New York State opened its portal on July 1st and then closed it on July 10th.
▶ 2:19:45So, it gave houses of worship just 10 days to apply over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Uh, Mr. Chairman, I request unanimous consent to enter into the record a bipartisan letter I signed urging FEMA to extend this deadline.
▶ 2:19:59Without objection.
▶ 2:20:00So, Mr. Fugate, do you agree that FEMA should extend the deadline for nonprofit security grant program and do everything possible to give houses of worship a fair chance to apply for this funding?
▶ 2:20:12I wouldn't oppose it. As FEMA administrator, I try to make it happen, but you got to remember, we had a secretary that shut down anything over $100,000 and they got a tremendous backlog to cover. And also, these grants have to be spent within the fiscal year. So, in addition to telling FEMA to extend it, you also need to consider legislation to extend the funding into the next fiscal year so they don't die at the end of this calendar year.
▶ 2:20:32Thank you. That's that's helpful. Um, so what other steps can FEMA take to streamline the process to get these vital security dollars to communities that need them?
▶ 2:20:43Getting a budget on October 1st would be because when we get a budget, we, you know, when you're under a CR, we can't initiate the grants. So when you do a CR and you do a CR and then you do an omnibus and now it's February and now FEMA's got to get the grants out before the end of the fiscal year. Do the budget on October 1st. It will go a lot
▶ 2:21:06I agree. Thank you,
▶ 2:21:09Mr. Staler. Thank you very much. It's unfortunate but unavoidable reality that no matter where you are, a disaster will take place near your home. These disasters upend families, disrupt communities, and have lasting effects on our economy and livelihoods. Therefore, it is critical that the federal government can help prepare communities for difficult times and execute recovery efforts when the inevitable disaster strikes.
▶ 2:21:33While we all recognize the importance of this issue, Congress and FEMA have struggled to enact the necessary reforms to streamline and strengthen disaster response. This has rightfully frustrated Americans who have been let down by their government during some of the most trying times of their lives. In Main Street America, small businesses are the lifeblood of local economies. When a disaster damages or prohibits locallyowned businesses from operating, it has widespread consequence for the entire community.
▶ 2:22:00While recovery efforts languish in bureaucratic purgatory, investments are squandered, jobs are lost, and people are hurt. Mr. appreciate events. What impact will the FEMA act have on small businesses that are affected by disasters?
▶ 2:22:15Thanks so much for the question. Um, interestingly enough, our foundation together with Verizon just issued a preliminary report on the impact on small businesses and what they found was that 94% of small businesses think they can recover from a disaster, but only 31% have contingency plans in place. And about 20% of small businesses also only have budgeted to recover from disasters. So that's what we call the optimism gap.
▶ 2:22:45And how I think the FEMA act is well placed to to help close that gap and anything that we can do to reduce the burden on small businesses will be helpful. So for instance, the universal application or the permitting reforms in the bill uh are would be very helpful to small businesses.
▶ 2:23:02Yeah, I agree. streamlining determinations and the delivery of the assistance is critical critical for helping these communities when they need it the most. Um, this bill also addresses how we prepare for these events. Uh, Mr. Chavitz, how do the preparedness incentives in this bill help business?
▶ 2:23:20Well, we already touched on the on the building to uh to increase code. So, what is the what is the next level of codes that we modernize codes that we can build to? That's one of the incentives in the bill. The other other uh one of the other incentives is to uh to call on states to issue potential tax incentives for uh for businesses and households to implement hardening measures.
▶ 2:23:46Those kinds of things will help with the sliding scale so that states can receive 85% of uh of the cost share and that help that's all helpful in creating a predesaster mitigation uh opportunity for uh for companies in that area.
▶ 2:24:04Thank you, Mr. Mat. The rural electric cooperatives that you present provide power to my constituents. They are critical infrastructure assets to districts like mine. When disasters inevitably knock out poles and power lines, how would the FEMA act expedite the help you need to reconnect our rural
▶ 2:24:24It's going to enhance what's already been a critical partnership for years between rural electric cooperatives and FEMA. It's been a a great partnership, but it can work better as I said in my opening statement. And the FEMA act is going to create greater certainty in terms of timing of payment. is going to create better opportunities for funding, more resilient assets in the future. They're more futurep proof instead of just building as is. It's going to allow for reimbursement of loan uh interest costs when co-ops borrow money because they're waiting for the FEMA grant money to come in.
▶ 2:24:52Uh these are all good steps that are going to help electric co-ops in terms of meeting the needs of their You know, our our nation must do better to support disasteraffected communities, and this legislation delivers common sense solutions to help FEMA work with the people. Uh, and I want to thank Chairman Graves for his hard work on this important legislation, and for all of you to be here to testify. Uh, you know, currently, uh, northern Minnesota, there's many fires going on as we speak.
▶ 2:25:20Uh, it's the fires are moving from west to east. our staff just got off a u a phone call with incident command and the sheriff and stuff and so when it's all said and done there may be a request and we want our communities to to get that funding immediately because that's what they need that's how they need to get back on their feet and it's across this whole nation and I think that working together and uh as uh as was stated earlier uh a funding
▶ 2:25:51uh before October 1st is is uh desirable and it must happen because we're all counting on it. These disasters, we can't plan on them. Uh Mr. Chavitz, um one of the questions I had when you said a tax incentive, is that a one time?
▶ 2:26:06One time for each each business.
▶ 2:26:08Yeah, one time or is it annoy?
▶ 2:26:11I I think it's up to each state when they're implementing.
▶ 2:26:13Okay. Okay. Okay. I was just curious. Okay. Thank you very much. Uh and I yield back, Mr. Chair. Mr. Frost. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. The climate crisis is creating severe weather that is more frequent and more deadly across the entire country and especially in my home state of Florida. That's why protecting my community from severe weather through preparedness, recovery, and mitigation has been a top priority since my first election.
▶ 2:26:39Besides the danger of the storms themselves, Flidians are becoming climate refugees thanks to the skyrocketing cost of homeowners insurance. Florida along with Louisiana and Oklahoma has the highest homeowners insurance premiums in the nation. Many insurance companies have left Florida and thousands of Flidians are gambling with no insurance or left for settling for Florida's insurer of last resort citizens property insurance. Citizens nowadays is not that much better than being uninsured.
▶ 2:27:07It denies claims and then forces customers into an unfair arbitration process. The company almost always wins. It's something my office is currently investigating. We have to deal with this property insurance crisis as quickly as possible. Mr. Waller, insurance affordability is a housing affordability issue. How will the FEMA Act investments in FEMA's mitigation programs help lower homeowners insurance premiums in disasterprone states like
▶ 2:27:32Thank you. I really appreciate the So, one of the things is the money for the retrofit program. That money would go to make homes, individual homes, more resilient so they can better withstand storms. So if you do that and that storm that house is more resilient, there's going to be less risk for that house and then that the premiums will follow. So if it's less likely to get damaged or if the damage is going to be less severe because it's been hardened, then I think the premium will follow and that and uh it'll drop with the risk.
▶ 2:28:03Thank you. Um Mr. Mr. Fugate, from the perspective of a former FEMA administrator and former director of FDM, the premier emergency preparedness in the entire country, how can Congress work with FEMA to ensure that insurance companies are paying out the full amount um of insurance claims that my constituents are owned after a storm? It's one of the things I hear about the most when I go knock doors after a
▶ 2:28:27Yeah. Well, it ain't going to be FEMA. It's going to be your state insurance commissioners. They regulate it. They enforce it. and they're where this goes. Um, but I would say that one of the things about giving FEMA because you know this, we've got people that have paid off their mortgage and are going bare because they can't afford $78,000 on fixed income. So when those homes get damaged, they're losing everything. We saw that in
▶ 2:28:51at least with this bill, we can repair their homes and get them back in it. So in absence of an insurance solution, this is addressing that gap. U, but I also have another idea. We have brick courts just ordered FEMA to do it again. Building resilient infrastructure and communities. Let's change it to what we really wanted to do. Building and sustaining insurable communities.
▶ 2:29:11We ought to be building back as a standard of what the insurance industry will That would start changing this dynamic because if we can move things back to more riskbased and making sure that it's appropriate for the risk, the insurance is reflected of that, we get credit for the building codes, we get out of this where the taxpayer exposure keeps growing. But we've really, if we're going to solve the insurance, I mean insurance companies, they have investors. They only invest if they make money.
▶ 2:29:42Insurance companies can't make money if they don't write policies. Mhm.
▶ 2:29:45So every time they pull out, they're riding off a market that they no longer can make a profit in. I realize profit may be something people are opposed to, but that's how the system works. We need to build homes in communities that are insurable that people will make the investment to cover that risk that they can get an honest return on, which is set by your state insurance commissioner, and they pay out claims fully when those occur, which is also your state insurance commissioner. FEMA can encourage that through mitigation,
▶ 2:30:13encouraging not building back the way it was to make better investments. I mean, we should be building that fire station I talked about earlier. We shouldn't be building it back to the code. We should build it back to an enhanced level that insurance company will go, that's a good risk. We'll ensure that.
▶ 2:30:29Thank you. Um Mich assessing or accessing federal aid to rebuild and prepare for future disasters should be as easy as possible. I've introduced the bill called the post disaster protection act earlier this year which is simple but extends the time local governments have to appeal a FEMA disaster relief denial from 60 to 90 days. The the bill has been endorsed by you know multiple organizations. How would such an extension for appeals help a city, county or state recover from the last storm and prepare for the next one?
▶ 2:30:58I think given the complicated process of that with the appeal would match the FEMA um policy as well and going from a 60 to a 90-day appeal is something that we would support. Okay. And Mr. Fig, last question. Again, given your time helping Flidians recover from disasters as a first responder and leader of FDM, how what challenges do individual storm victims face when they're trying to file a timely and accurate application or appeal FEMA relief funds?
▶ 2:31:24You're out of time.
▶ 2:31:25This will be quick cuz we're out of
▶ 2:31:27We have built our individual assistance program around the process, not the survivor. So, you got to go figure it out. I mean, how many people here know that the IRS will give you credit and allow you to file an amended return and get money back. Many times that had insurance and didn't qualify for any FEMA programs, they could have got the IRS to give them a refund.
▶ 2:31:48We don't tell people that. We make them figure out FEMA instead of building a system that is built around them. We are not survivor centric. We are process and program centric.
▶ 2:31:57Yeah, 100%. I agree. and and you know just like a few months ago I was knocking doors in one of the one of the parts of my district most impacted by Ian not super recent people just moving back into their homes many of them were living in the sheds behind their home uh many of them were living in hotels or had to leave the state and a lot of these people have paid off their mortgage that's their house and that's all they have um very frustrated with FEMA but I think this this bill is a good step forward thank you I yield back
▶ 2:32:25Mr. Taylor.
▶ 2:32:27Thank you, chairman, for holding this meeting and uh thank you also to our witnesses for the time and sacrifice you made to be with us today and for your expertise in this matter. We really appreciate it. I represent several uh counties along the Ohio River and during heavy seasonal rains, flash floods, threatened communities along the river. This is where uh FEMA needs to have policies and procedures in place to support communities before, during, and after natural disasters.
▶ 2:32:52I was proud to support the committee's work on HR 4669 and the common sense reforms we passed earlier this Congress to reform FEMA and serve our constituents better. Looking forward to moving this bill through the full house. I represent Appalachin communities across southern Ohio that unfortunately struggle with broadband access. Without reliable internet access, many of my constituents use AM radio to get natural disaster warnings and evacuation instructions.
▶ 2:33:19HR979, the AM radio for every vehicle act, which I'm a proud co-sponsor of, mandates the inclusion of AM radio platforms and all new passenger vehicles. Several members of the panel are in very rural area adjacent situations. So, by a show of hands, who else supports uh having an AM radio for all new vehicles? Okay, thank you very much.
▶ 2:33:42I appreciate Under the previous administration, we saw irrefutable evidence of what we long expected. That FEMA was staffed with and policy was driven by highly partisan individuals who openly discriminated against and endangered conservative victims of disasters. The fact of the matter is it's impossible to staff a nonpartisan agency in Washington DC. We have a lot of agencies in Washington DC that are called nonpartisan. It would take an amazing amount of naive to believe that we actually have them.
▶ 2:34:12I applaud this administration's effort to move vital agencies out of this area. FEMA's decisions and policies are literally life and death. They cannot be made by ideologues. It should be on top of the list of agencies to be moved. Not only would it solve the inherent bias issue, it could place the agency in a location where it could be more responsive to the victims of disaster. But for now, it's located here. Is any member of the panel aware of efforts currently being made to root out the bias in the agency?
▶ 2:34:48Does anyone agree with my proposition that the agency would be better off in another location?
▶ 2:34:53I agree. And I think a basic premise of working for Republicans and Democrats was always disasters ain't about your It's about the communities got hit. And as a nation, we always pull together to help communities. It don't matter what your political affiliation is. I work for Governor Jeb Bush. I work for Charlie Chris. I work for President Obama. That's the standard. And if it isn't, we need to fix it. We talked a little bit today about making the the U. Agency more independent.
▶ 2:35:21You think a combination of making it more independent and moving it to a more centrally located at least relative to population um area would be helpful in that regard? Anybody? I'm not Mr. Fugate has answered 99% of the questions and I' I'm sorry for that, but anybody wants to weigh on that, I'm happy to hear.
▶ 2:35:38Yeah, moving FEMA ain't going to change anything. And actually, you're going to want them here because you want to do the hearings, but FEMA has 10 regional offices which are in the communities. We need to strengthen and encourage that. That's the delivery mechanism. Headquarters is policy implementation and rarely, which I did a lot, uh, get directly involved in the response. That's what the regions are for. Um, but moving FEMA, here's the reality. They work with the agencies that are here.
▶ 2:36:08You want them to count for stuff. They need to be near the White House as the president's principal adviser. Putting him in the middle of the country does nothing but break that. Strengthen the regions. Keep FEMA here.
▶ 2:36:20Okay. I might have misunderstood you. I thought earlier you said you thought it should be moved out of Washington DC, but you think it should be kept in Washington DC.
▶ 2:36:26No, I never said move it out of DC. This is said they want to move it out of Homeland Security. I wouldn't oppose
▶ 2:36:31Okay. Just independent but still located here where 90% of people are Democrat or further left. Is that what you're saying?
▶ 2:36:44Quite honestly, I never asked anybody what their party affiliation was. Didn't care. Um and being in DC, it ain't it it really didn't make any difference. Um, you know, the partisanization and all that stuff, 99% of the people at FEMA, they're just trying to do the mission. There's always the odd duck and the stupid people that do stupid things. And I had my share of them. Um, but most of the people at FEMA, they're there for the mission. They're there to help.
▶ 2:37:13And being in DC are not in DC. You know, most of the people that work in FE that worked at FEMA weren't from DC. In fact, most of our leadership came from state and local emergency management agencies. That's the team we built. So being in DC ain't got nothing to do with there's a lot of Democrats here. It's got to do the talent and the people you recruit and you put in the system. And if you're doing it on a partisan basis, you're going to fail the mission.
▶ 2:37:36Well, you're recruiting in an area that has 90% plus Democrats and you're you're trying to get a bipartisan staff. You think that's possible?
▶ 2:37:45Yeah, you go recruit. You know where I got some of my best staff? Wounded Warriors. because I could hire a veteran under category A classification quicker than I could going through civil service. So if you want that, we we used the tools. We went out and recruited and I would assure you most of the folks that ended up working at FEMA in the leadership roles and running the programs, they weren't from here.
▶ 2:38:09Even the people that aren't from here end up reporting themselves to be 90% plus Democrat. I mean whether they come from DC or not, we're talking about the people that are here that you have to hire from.
▶ 2:38:20Well, again, that's opinions or opinions. I won't disagree, you know, and I won't, you know, say you're wrong. I'm just saying my observations were if there was an organization that was not it was FEMA.
▶ 2:38:35Glad to hear. Thank you. Thank you again everybody for being here.
▶ 2:38:39Mr. Carbajal, thank you very much. Uh I I I look forward to getting some data from uh my colleague Mr. Taylor, who I like very much, but uh a lot of opinions and not enough facts, and I sure hope I get that data that supports his sort of political bias that he's talking about other than just a thought or thinking of it. So I I look forward to getting that. Don't think I'll get it, but I look forward to getting that.
▶ 2:39:07Miss Lee Shang, I have heard from local governments on California's central coast that they're waiting months, in some cases years, for FEMA rein reimbursements needed to recover from the 2023 and 2024 storms. At the same time, ranking member Greg Stanton has raised concerns that FEMA personnel and resources have been diverted to support immigration enforcement activities. Are counties seeing any evidence that FEMA's disaster recovery workforce or capacity has been diminished?
▶ 2:39:35And if so, how has that affected the timelines of public assistance reimbursements?
▶ 2:39:44Obviously, I think at the county level, we're a little bit immune of what goes on at the national level, but certainly um we support FEMA um's mission of helping with disasters before, during, and after disasters, and we certainly want FEMA fully staffed.
▶ 2:39:59Thank you, Miss uh Lee Shing. Across my district, spanning through California's central coast, local governments have have identified nearly $100 million in delays for FEMA reimbursements. In Santa Barbara County alone, there are 23 projects totaling nearly $ 36.9 million still waiting reimbursements.
▶ 2:40:21Boy, that partisan secretary um you know had $100,000 that had to go before her. Um it's it it's appalling uh why reimbursements haven't gone out. St. Lucis County reports more than 21 million tied up in large projects. Review and v in review and Ventura County Hospital reimbursements claim that they have been waiting for years for obligations.
▶ 2:40:51What do the delays like this mean for county budgets, infrastructure projects, and the ability to prepare for the next disaster? Well, I think there is widespread agreement on the um the reimbursement process being taking a long time and certainly um I think that everybody who looks in disaster management knows that's something that can be approved upon.
▶ 2:41:12But certainly um very very hard on smaller counties that don't have the um debt capacity, don't have the tax base to support having those funds um the immediate needs in front of them with a disaster and having the financial resources to counter that. So, um this is probably one of the largest segments of this FEMA act that Niko supports and we want that um the the processing time to get reduced um in the form of giving upfront spending.
▶ 2:41:42Thank you, Miss Lee Shang. Some of the counties and local governments I represent describe constantly changing documentation requirements and repeated requests for information throughout the FEMA public assistance process. Some have shared that they have had a repeated had to repeatedly resubmit documentation and respond to changing guidance as different FEMA staff become involved in their projects. Is administrative burden becoming one of the biggest obstacles to disaster
▶ 2:42:12I think when we looked at this the task force as well as our Niko members looked at this as well. Um yes that is the common theme that we have seen. Um it's complicated there are delays. um it is slow and um sometimes you have to start a process over again and so I think um when we discuss it at no that is the widespread belief is that we need to streamline these processes and it'll get again get the funding to the counties
▶ 2:42:40Thank you. Now if I was being political like my previous colleague alluded to this administration has put in tons of Republicans into uh public service. Is this what we get?
▶ 2:42:54Miss Shang, you don't even have to answer that. That was a rhetorical question. FEMA's public assistance program was designed to help communities recover after disasters. But again, many local governments now describe the reimbursements process as unpredictable and taking years to complete. In your view, what has changed and how how can Congress restore a more timely process?
▶ 2:43:15Well, I think the FEMA act is critical. I think you know from a county perspective we will see a disaster happen and we will quickly try to do afteraction reports and respond quickly to make it better. Certainly when you look at a federal system with the amount of departments that are there it's a very large system. It's very difficult to make quick movements and changes. Um it has it takes an act of congress to do it I'll say and that's why we support the FEMA act but um we just generally believe that emergency management and de and disasters are coming at us at a quicker pace.
▶ 2:43:46They're very complicated. Um we're having new challenges and all we want at Niko is to have our disaster relief match the challenges that we faced and so that we really believe this reform is necessary.
▶ 2:43:57Thank you. In closing, let me just say Doge was supposed to make things more effective and efficient. It it it ended up costing us more and it made things burdensome, chaotic, and bureaucratic. Thank you so much. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
▶ 2:44:12Mr. Callie.
▶ 2:44:14Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh we all know that FEMA has had a lot of problems and uh the FEMA act um which cleared this committee uh earlier uh this year uh is certainly a major step in the right direction and this is the way that legislation really should be done. Uh it was done in a bipartisan way uh with uh a huge amount of local input to actually identify what are the problems on the ground, how can we improve uh disaster response uh in this country.
▶ 2:44:38Uh and you know this is a particular concern uh for a lot of folks in California where we've been hit by uh some truly devastating wildfires. Of course we've all seen uh in the aftermath of the LA fires uh how many homeers have struggled to be able to uh to rebuild uh and how the process has been uh incredibly slow there. uh but perhaps even more so in um several communities that I represent, very much smaller communities uh that you know were struck by fires that weren't necessarily on the national radar.
▶ 2:45:07Uh but then they just had uh went through terrible ordeals trying to rebuild their communities uh in the aftermath. People not being able to access their home, not even be able to start rebuilding on their home. Uh so uh Mr. Fugat, um you mentioned in your testimony uh one of the provisions of the FEMA act dealing with uh repair authority. Uh so could you just talk a little bit more about that? How it might help homeowners in this type of circumstance who are trying to recover and rebuild?
▶ 2:45:32Yeah, I mean this is basic, you know, economy act. If you're not appropriate and authorized to do something, you can't do it. Nowhere in the Stafford Act does it say FEMA can do permanent repairs. So we use shelter authority and we weasel word it and try to figure out how to do it. This would give clear authority. So instead of putting a tarp on a roof at about 7 to $10,000, we can actually repair the roof. Now, if the home's burnt to the slab, this is not going to help them.
▶ 2:45:56But if there's damages, walls that were damaged, and you need to make repairs to get the power back on, to get people back home, it makes more sense to me as a taxpayer to spend the money to do permanent work to get people back in their homes than to provide a temporary solution that ends at 18 months and they have nowhere to go.
▶ 2:46:16Yeah. Total total common sense. uh for folks who have been through the trauma of losing their home, the last thing they need is to have arbitrary bureaucratic barriers that stand in the way of getting back in their home or starting to to rebuild their homes. Uh another important thing that uh the FAMAG does is is really shift the paradigm towards dis disaster readiness and and prevention. So, Mr. uh Chedditz, you talk about this some in your testimony. Uh can you uh shed a little light on how uh the FEMA act will uh make us better prepared to stop wildfires before they happen?
▶ 2:46:47Well, appreciate it. So, the, you know, the the formula based funding where they switched brick from a competitive approach to formula based will make funding more reliable to those communities and homeowners in order to receive the funding ahead of time to prepare ahead of the disaster to implement those measures that can help mitigate what might happen going forward.
▶ 2:47:10Um the chamber also supports the fix our far act which we also is is uh passed uh through the through the house uh early in 2025. And so those things together can be very helpful in moving forward with uh wildfire
▶ 2:47:27Yeah. And I think the formulation behind the FEMA act uh that several others have mentioned uh locally driven state managed federally supported is exactly the right formulation for all these things. And on the prevention and mitigation uh front I have a couple measures that I've uh introduced. one I've introduced, one we're introducing this week. Uh the first is the Safe Homes Act, which is giving folks a tax incentive for uh for mitigation work uh that they do uh on their own homes, strategic tree removal, uh upgrading materials, uh that sort of thing.
▶ 2:47:54Um and then the second, which we're going to introduce uh this week, is a bill related to to biomass. And uh you know we've uh as we've seen one of the uh things that's uh you know made it more difficult to have effective forest management uh in our state is the industry has really collapsed when it comes to uh the timber industry. Uh and uh one of the potential uses of timber has proven to be economically difficult and that is biomass.
▶ 2:48:19And so uh when you it comes to actually getting these facilities up and running it a lot of times they don't pencil out even though it provides a good economic incentive to do tree removal that is actually good from a forest management perspective. So with that kind of externality positive externality we think that uh there is a strong case for uh federal incentives there beyond just the incentives you get for the production of energy but for the construction of the facility.
▶ 2:48:42Uh so this week we're going to be introducing legislation uh that will provide a total 30% tax credit for the cost of building a biomass facility which is another thing that I think will move us in the right direction uh in terms of uh of prevention and we'll have a host of other benefits as well. Uh so thank you Mr. Chair for convening this hearing. I hope to see the FEMA act enacted into law this year uh and I yield back.
▶ 2:49:03Miss Titus.
▶ 2:49:07Thank you very much. Uh thank all the panelists for being here. Um, I was the ranking member of the emergency management subcommittee. So, I've long been working on these issues. And one of the things that has concerned me is getting FEMA to recognize and be involved in a disaster that greatly impacts my district, and that's extreme heat. You know, extreme heat kills more people every year than tornadoes and hurricanes combined and floods.
▶ 2:49:36Last year there were nearly uh 300 heat associated deaths in southern Nevada and just this weekend temperatures have already reached 111 degrees in my district. That's why along with Mr. Stanton I introduced the extreme weather and heat response modernization act.
▶ 2:49:56This was to bring FEMA more into the process to help them better address the issue of extreme heat and provide communities with more resources like cooling centers to address the issue and keep people safe during these times. Key provisions of the bill were in the FEMA act which I'm very pleased passed out of this committee last year.
▶ 2:50:19One of them was to convene an advisory committee to study periods of disaster that are slow onset or non-ontiguous, which is what extreme heat is. So, I would ask you, President uh Lee, in your testimony, you talk about how the Jefferson Parish experienced 43 consecutive days of record-breaking heat in recent years. And that's a different kind of heat from in Las Vegas.
▶ 2:50:46has a not a dry heat like we have, but it's it's just as uh threatening. I wonder if you could talk about some of the challenges you faced at the local level responding to this kind of non-traditional natural disaster and how having federal support would help you to mitigate the threat.
▶ 2:51:06I think um what you said is very key that it's a non-traditional disaster and certainly that has been our experience where I come from in Louisiana. Um, in 2023, we had 43 days of record-breaking heat. Uh, that that hazard um I I generally like to say it hazards make babies. That hazard um caused an infrastructure line to break where I had to turn off the water for 100,000 people.
▶ 2:51:29That hazard of drought also caused something called saltwater intrusion which I didn't even know about at the time which threatened the entire uh drinking supply in the greater New Orleans area. So again, this is the importance of the FEMA act is we are seeing different kinds of challenges, um different kinds of hazards that we've never seen before. We had snow uh where I come from in Louisiana. We've never had snow before.
▶ 2:51:52So it's it's very frightening to to be frank and um we want as a country to have a disaster reform and disaster response that matches the new challenges that we face.
▶ 2:52:03I I appreciate that. And this this is going to get worse with uh climate change. Uh we're going to see more of these kind of instances and we're going to see it in places where you haven't seen it uh in the past. Extreme heat is doesn't get the attention that it deserves because it doesn't make for good TV. You can't see the big flood. You can't see the tornado results. It and it's more prolonged. When did it start? When did it stop? Who all is impacted?
▶ 2:52:29Can you offer any suggestion for how FEMA might better work with local governments on this issue?
▶ 2:52:36Well, I think especially in this act, what it's uh what we want to see is mitigation reform. And that is something that especially with heat for for where I come from, um it's challenging to all of our infrastructure. Not only does extreme heat affect people and vulnerable communities, but it also affects soil conditions. So, a lot of things are going on underground that you don't know about that are going to pop up. So I think the mitigation piece in this and moving to a projectbased mitigation instead of a competitive will um help on that front.
▶ 2:53:05Thank you. Uh Mr. Chovich, we've talking about how heat impacts lives, but it also impacts livelihoods. Can you talk about kind of how the toll of extreme heat is on industry?
▶ 2:53:19Well, I I thanks so much for the question and I agree with President Lee Shang about the kind of the multi-hazard nature of heat and its relationship to drought and drought has direct uh relationship to the economy impacting not just agriculture but uh sectors across the economy like electric
▶ 2:53:40Also on forest fires, you're seeing more connection with the drought and the heat and the forest fires.
▶ 2:53:46Sure. the the issues related to wildfire that were raised earlier. Uh you know the the predesaster mitigation provisions in the bill to uh look ahead of the next disaster so that we can uh address all and all hazards approach I think is is an appropriate way for FEMA to address this and and the bill is is well positioned to do that.
▶ 2:54:09We see a lot of spread of data centers in wide open spaces in the southwest where heat is an issue and how how's that going to connect to water use and power use? I think it's going to be part of this
▶ 2:54:24Can can you can you repeat the question? I didn't
▶ 2:54:27Well, it wasn't really a question. It was just an observation about David Centers on this as well. Thank you. I yield back,
▶ 2:54:34Miss King Huns.
▶ 2:54:36Thank you very much, Mr. chairman and thank you to all of you for your insight and sharing your experiences so that we can all learn and and hopefully uh be better contributors in terms of the reforms that we're discussing. Um I represent the northern Mariana Islands where we have been through more than enough named disasters that we don't measure disasters by years anymore. We measure them we we don't measure time by by years. We we measure them by storms.
▶ 2:55:05And um you know every time we try to get back on our feet something else knocks us down. And just to give you context um we got hit by typhoon Sudalore in 2015 which was described as the world's strongest tropical cyclone. And then in 2018 we got hit by super typhoon which was described as the strongest storm anywhere on earth in 2018.
▶ 2:55:31And then 2020 we all got hit by the pandemic which basically bl brought global touris global tourism down to like a standstill. And because you know tourism is our economy, it killed that too. And then earlier this year, and by earlier, two months ago, we got hit by Typhoon Salaku, which lasted for four days and was described as the world's strongest storm of the year.
▶ 2:56:01And then just a week ago, we get hit by another by typhoon, super typhoon Bobby, which was described as the world's strongest typhoon to hit, right, in just a matter of time. And so in in having these conversations about reform, I I do agree that everybody needs to have skin in the game. And and I guess this is a question to Mr. Fugate Fugate.
▶ 2:56:24What happens when communities and you know how do how do we look at the these policies um and these reforms to consider communities who um are experiencing these disasters not in a singular not as a singular event but as a but are feeling this cumulative impact and no longer have skin in the game. No, no, I'm sorry. That that no longer have skin to give.
▶ 2:56:50Yeah, this is I mean I remember the tracks were all going to Guam and now they shifted north. And if you went down to Guam and you looked at how it got rebuilt, fortunately it had big military so that supported that. Um it changed the construction. There were no more wooden poles. Everything was concrete. They had to harden. And I think that's where from a federal taxpayer the advantage is we should not be putting CMI back the way it was.
▶ 2:57:14We should be building for the fact that you're going to have continual exposure to super typhoons and a lot of construction that people would think would be appropriate don't work there. That cost more money on the front end, but it doesn't make sense to keep rebuilding every time. And as you pointed out, the frequency of the occurrence of these, I mean, it was for a long time. Guam got hit, Saipan and and CMI got outskirts. Now you're getting hit directly now.
▶ 2:57:41And this is kind of like how South Florida, Southwest Florida feels and get hit like three hurricanes in a row. You get to the point where we can't keep doing what we've been doing and expect it to work. I think that's where the bill gets to is we're going to have to change what we're doing. But I think more importantly, this concept of building back based upon a 100 years of data and standards won't work, especially in your situation. So we have to build for future risk.
▶ 2:58:08We have to build as if super typhoons are not rare events. And I think that's a hard thing for people to get around because they think of these as singular events and you know they're not. But communities get hit hard. They go that was our disaster for a hundred years and we'll go back to the way it was and then it happens five years later and they go I thought you said that was a hundred-year event. They have no idea what that means.
▶ 2:58:32It's like every other month now. It does not make sense to do incremental because it will only fail for the next one. It's like rebuilding a fire station that got hit by a category 4 hurricane and building it to the building codes. It will fail in the next category 4 hurricane. Why don't we build it for the function? So, I think that's really this bill gives that flexibility, but it's also going to come back to FEMA working with the governor and congress.
▶ 2:59:00There are going to be some cases where the rebuilding cost will be substantially higher in the territories than it would be domestically. We had to rebuild homes in in America Samoa. People had heart failure at what it cost. Um we also have by American which also conflicts and causes problem because all the resources have to come from the mainland. But if you build it back the way it was, you'll have it destroyed again. It's as simple as that.
▶ 2:59:29Thank you for that. I'm running out of time. I yield back. Thank you, Mr.
▶ 2:59:33Mr. Garcia.
▶ 2:59:35Thank you, uh, Chairman, ranking member, uh, and to all of our witnesses. Of course, uh, let's be clear why we're here. Uh, the president is weaponizing the federal disaster aid process. Since residents of Illinois have faced severe storms and tornadoes that have damaged homes and businesses.
▶ 2:59:56In my district, communities like Burbank, Summit, and Chicago's southwest side endured intense thunderstorms last July. This heavy rainfall, flooded roads, overwhelmed drainage systems, causing severe flooding of people's basements. Flooded basements cause mold, which creates health hazards for residents, especially children and the elderly.
▶ 3:00:23Families have been forced out of their homes while expensive repairs are made. Despite the extensive documented damage from the July 2025 storms, the president denied the state's major disaster request. Unfortunately, it wasn't surprising.
▶ 3:00:41The decision fit the larger pattern of denials of requests from Democratic It is yet another example of the president's willingness to put politics over working families who are the affected ones.
▶ 3:00:55This hearing is also timely due to the release of a report by the subcommittee on energy management detailing how FEMA staff and resources are being shifted to support ICE and Let's let that sink in.
▶ 3:01:13The people tasked with responding to disasters in the US were diverted to provide support for executing arrests, raids, and patrols for ICE and CBP. The same ICE and CBP that killed Lorenzo Salgado Ajo in Houston, Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Maine, Sylvio Viegas Gonzalez in my district in Chicagoland, Alex Prey and Renee Gold in Minneapolis, and others
▶ 3:01:44over the last year and a half. The Trump administration deportation machine truly knows no bounds. This report clearly lays out how this administration has repeatedly undermined FEMA's primary mission. My questions, uh, Mr. Fugate, thank you for being here.
▶ 3:02:04In your opinion, why is it important that the FEMA administrator have clear operational authority over the nation's emergency management system free from interference from DHS? Do you really want a committee coordinating the response? Because that's what happens when everybody has a say.
▶ 3:02:28Giving FEMA the administrator, which the law says they've got, but if they're not allowed to do that, now they're having to go through all these other people who weigh in who have their ideas of how to do it. That's the problem. You can't run disasters by committee. You need to put people in accountable positions. And remember, FEMA is not running the disaster. FEMA's running the federal response in support of the governor.
▶ 3:02:54And so that ability to do that job to execute on behalf of the president where the authorities arise to meet the needs of those states, not always giving them what they want, but what the law allows and working as much as possible to get to the margins. That's the job. And when you have to go through multiple opinions, other people weighing in, a secretary that imposes a $100,000 purchasing a limit, which in FEMA would like a joke.
▶ 3:03:22I never did anything that was under $100,000, which meant now when I activate to send the search and rescue teams to to Texas for the flood. That's a million dollars to crank up a team. And they got to get permission to do that. You know how much time that delays? Those are the kind of decisions we had told our staff, make them, we execute. You gave us that authority. You gave us authority to respond before a governor asked for help. But if you got to get a committee to make a decision, you're losing every advantage you gave FEMA.
▶ 3:03:51And if they're not executing the authority, it slows down response and it causes more
▶ 3:03:57Thank you, sir. Uh and just quickly, uh does a reduced FEMA workforce impact the agents, uh agency's ability to lead and support comprehensive emergency management system? Well, you're not going to like this answer. The answer is yes and no. Yes, because of the complexity of how we run things. If we did the FE FEMA fix, you know, fix FEMA act, we can run it with a lot less people. Most of the staff are tied up in recovery.
▶ 3:04:26If we simplify procedures, we can do it with fewer staff. Running it as today, it takes a lot more people than you
▶ 3:04:34Thank you, sir. And that's why I support this bill because emergency response and disaster relief should be non-partisan. It shows how absurd the structure at DHS is. I'm ready to approve this bill. Thank you,
▶ 3:04:52Mr. Petronis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this important meeting today. ladies, uh gentlemen, thank you'all for for being here and especially your expertise and time. Um Mr. Fugate, thank you for your service to the state of Florida and also our nation. It's a thankless job. You uh take a lot of arrows in the front and the back over your career. Um hate that you come from Gainesville, but it is what it is.
▶ 3:05:19But uh really you're uh you're admired and appreciate for your candidness today. Um, I had the honor of being the state CFO and fire marshall in Florida for about the last nine years and had nine hurricanes that we respond to and it was it was interesting watching the evolution of people's confidence and ability to make the decisions over time as they kind of understand what the battle rhythm of what to expect.
▶ 3:05:42Um, the the one thing that I I I've learned and I I point out to people all the time, especially when it comes to the insurance claims process, and you think about a a person that lives in their home, most people in America, if they're in the ability where they bought a home, they're living in a home, they bought it, and you think about how much smaller that audience is, maybe the home they live in, they built it. Who in the hell rebuilds a home? You know, it's it's it's overwhelming.
▶ 3:06:12And I keep on speaking just to the point of where I'm most familiar with hurricanes and the trauma and the vulnerability and the challenges and the the fussing that local government. There's a reason why they call these events disasters. They don't move smoothly. But but to to Mr. Fugate's point earlier, sometimes you got to make a decision and and move on because you've got to be able to start to put things back together.
▶ 3:06:37um your your comments regarding, you know, allowing FEMA to get into the space of rebuilding. I would like you maybe to elaborate on that because that's always been something I was excited about. You know, instead of giving somebody 37 or $38,000 worth of living expense money over the period they're entitled to over 18 months, you could have given them, you know, nine grand and they could have fixed their roof and they'd be back in their home. Where's the impass for those type of solutions from becoming a reality?
▶ 3:07:06Why are we why can't we have that on a consistent basis?
▶ 3:07:09Well, representative and and again, I thank you for service as you know, insurance commissioner, fire commissioner. That's not an easy job either. Um,
▶ 3:07:16we used to measure recovery by how many blue roofs we had. Yeah.
▶ 3:07:20Remember that. We'd fly over and go, we got blue, we're recovering. No, you don't. You got a patch that will last 6 months and then it's going to fail.
▶ 3:07:27And it's costing us through the contractor 67 $10,000 to putting that tarp up there. That's
▶ 3:07:32Because FEMA can only do temporary sheltering. So, we were sheltering in their homes by giving them permanent authority. You go, well, instead of putting a and we may still put the patch on there to begin with. Why don't we fix the roof?
▶ 3:07:45You know, even if I did a full roof replacement and brought it to code, that's 30 to $35,000. That's a lot cheaper than putting a travel trailer, mobile home, or paying 18 months of hotel expenses. And I get people back in their home. And you saw as I did, if we don't get them back in their home quick enough, they're never getting back
▶ 3:08:03That's right. You got to get the power on, the air conditioning on, stop the water, control the mold, and if we lose that home, we just lost another workforce housing that will never get rebuilt affordable.
▶ 3:08:14Well, you're you're exactly right. And and then you got the trauma of 18 months later, well, we got to get you out of your mobile home that that FEMA's provided for you and how hard it is on that community because you're trying to stabilize it, putting a roof over somebody's head. I just I've always thought that was such a brilliant idea of a better use of taxpayers dollars and you know pre-event contracts for repairs. Um with um Mr.
▶ 3:08:44Walker, let's talk about insurance claims a minute. Um so in Florida, what we did, we would set up insurance claims villages and we would bring in people. Now, we also we played a role of dealing with insurance fraud and how predatory the environment is. I mean, I told people I said the public adjusters and the shady contractors, they're better pre-staged than utilities are. I mean, it is what it is. They are there waiting to pounce and get people to sign up.
▶ 3:09:13And the some of the horrific things I saw people go through. Um, but you know, the challenge that people got, it is what it is. You know what? I think everybody can find, you know, the salesman that approaches them in a vulnerable time with a gas can in a case of water pretty attractive, but sometimes an insurance adjuster, the frustration they get. And I have to explain to people, I said, it's not like you're replacing a 26 Chevrolet Tahoe that has a VIN number that thousands of produce and they're all cookie cutter. Every home was built at a different time, a different day.
▶ 3:09:44How do we where is our shortcomings of helping build more consumer confidence in the claims process? Is it the role of government to do it? Where can the industry step up?
▶ 3:09:57So, we talking about u the fraud after a storm in particular?
▶ 3:10:01All the above and and ensuring the policyholder gets money in a timely manner because because here's the deal. We all have insurance and it's embedded in our mortgage. Sometimes I don't even know that it's in there. Some people don't know that, but please elaborate.
▶ 3:10:16One of the things I thought of when you were talking about the issues after a storm, I've seen more states pass laws regarding assignment of benefits. So, it it prohibits um that exact situation where, you know, a roofer rose up on your yard and they step out and they tell you, "Hey, your roof is is torn up, but it's okay. I can take care of you. I've got this iPad. Just check a couple boxes here. You won't even have to deal with your insurance company. I'll deal with your insurance company.
▶ 3:10:45And oh, do you have a deductible? No problem. I'll take care of that deductible, too. That sounds great. And like most things that sound too good to be true, it is. What we often see is that that shows up to the insurance company. Our first notice is when we get a bill that may be two or three times what it should have cost to repair that roof. Now, it's a problem.
▶ 3:11:05we start to now this is the first time we know about it and we let our insured knows it's the first time the insured knows because they they weren't aware that they gave up that claim and it puts them in a real spot you know because if that if that issue isn't able to re be able to be resolved and sometimes it isn't that roofer can then put pressure on the insured by saying I or the the person that had the house saying I'm going to put a lean on and maybe I'll just foreclose on your house and that way I'll get all this money.
▶ 3:11:34So, I've seen states pass that and the commissioner in Kentucky said, you know, I can't do a lot about storms. I can do something about fraud and that has really helped in some of those states where they've passed that.
▶ 3:11:48Mr. Figures, thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you guys for all coming to what I thought was the FEMA uh hearing, but it it it appears that it's the Craig Fugate uh oversight hearing today. Um, but I I appreciate uh you being here. Certainly appreciate you uh you guys' collective expertise. Um, you know, FEMA plays a critical role that you guys all know in helping communities prepare and respond and recover to disasters.
▶ 3:12:17And as we examine opportunities to reform the agency, our goal should certainly be to ensure it can deliver assistance more efficiently, effectively, and equitably uh to the Americans who depend on it. Uh this discussion is especially important for communities like those I represent in Alabama's second congressional district which includes my hometown of of Mobile. Um that has a very interesting FEMA history with being the location where President Bush uttered those famous words about then FEMA administrator Mike Brown doing an excellent job in in um Katrina recovery.
▶ 3:12:47Uh but as a Gulf state Alabama is particularly vulnerable to tropical storms and hurricanes. Every hurricane season, our communities prepare for the possibility of those devastating winds and flooding and storm surge and prolonged power outages. In recent years, we've also seen severe weather become more frequent, more intense, and more costly. Uh whether it's hurricanes, tornadoes, uh flooding, drought, or severe storms, communities across Alabama are facing disasters with increasing regularity, as are many communities across uh this nation.
▶ 3:13:14Over the past 5 years alone, Alabama has received at least six major disaster declarations and communities across the state continue to face severe weather events that strain local resources. Uh several of those counties are in my district. Uh in addition to Mobile, counties like Barber County, Bulock, Butler, Clark, KKA, Krenshaw, Monroe, Montgomery counties, Pike counties, uh Russell and Washington counties. Look, as these disasters become more frequent and more costly, we examine whether um the federal disaster assistance process is working as intended.
▶ 3:13:43Uh I represent a district where the individual median income is about $33,000. And uh I know uh President Shing, your communities there in Louisiana are not much different. And so when these disasters come through, you know, a lot of times what we see, I heard was talking about tarps. Uh Representative Patronis was talking about tarps. What we see in a lot of situations in my district is those tarps are going on houses that people don't own. Uh they're going on rental properties essentially. Uh and I grew up in Mobile.
▶ 3:14:13There's some tarps that have been up there 20 years, 20 plus years. Um can you talk to me a little bit about the challenges that you face in communities where you have this sort of income level um and the challenges that are unique to those communities and how FEMA how you think FEMA can better assist those people who are not necessarily homeowners? Yes, I think one of the uh elements of the FEMA act that would directly help those people is the universal disaster application.
▶ 3:14:41Obviously, you get relief in over I think the the number I've heard 17 different federal agencies give disaster relief and when you are a member of a vulnerable community, you've lost your housing, your kids are displaced, trying to reach and access those benefits are very very very difficult. Um and it ends up being the help the locals have to help them to the extent that we can. Um so the benefit is there, it's legally there, but how do you access it is very very difficult.
▶ 3:15:10Um so we really promote the universal disaster application for benefits for survivors and that is in this act.
▶ 3:15:17Thank you. Mr. Fugate, what are your thoughts on the matter in terms of how how FEMA can be better streamlined to provide assistance um uh for those poor You know, a lot of those rental properties because we treat it like a business and so we're not supposed to provide business assistance.
▶ 3:15:34That's my point. Yeah.
▶ 3:15:35A lot of those are second homes. People retired, they rent their homes out and that's the affordable housing.
▶ 3:15:41I'm not talking about the investment firms that go up and buy them. I'm talking about people that don't even have the resources to make repairs. But we put a wall up saying if it's privately owned and being rented, it's not eligible. And we're losing housing stock. I don't know if that's FEMA, that's HUD, but you've seen it, the mayor's seen it. We've seen this every time when a storm hits, a flood hits, we lose the workforce housing.
▶ 3:16:05And those rental properties are key because if that people that had insurance on those rental properties, when they rebuild them, they're not renting them at what it was before. So, we're getting priced out. It's a whole I don't think the FEMA act can address this. I don't think FEMA, the current Stafford Act is addressing this, but I think of all the things, insurance, all these are symptoms. We're losing workforce housing faster than we can build it.
▶ 3:16:34And I'm not talking just affordable housing. I'm talking about where firefighters live, doctors, nurses, paramedics, people running the the local, you know, home improvement stores. They can't even afford to live in their communities. You've seen this in mobile. We've actually watched the progression as people have moved inland and inland because there's nothing left in the communities used to live in that they can afford and it's getting worse.
▶ 3:16:57Well, I appreciate it and I look forward to working with my colleagues on ways to address that. Thank you,
▶ 3:17:02Dr. Babin.
▶ 3:17:04Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And uh it's very sobering testimony there, Mr. Fugate. Thank you. And I want to thank uh the chairman and ranking member and also thank you to all you witnesses here. As we consider reforms to FEMA, is important that we focus not only on improving disaster response, but also on strengthening disaster preparedness before storms and other emergencies even occur. families, businesses, and local communities.
▶ 3:17:31In my district, in the Texas 36, Southeast Texas, very, very familiar with uh with hurricanes, tornadoes, and a lot of floods. We know firsthand that preparing before a storm makes landfall can save lives, reduce damage, and speed recovery. I recently joined local officials at a hurricane preparedness expo in Chambers County, which I represent, where we discussed the importance of helping communities prepare before disasters strike.
▶ 3:18:00These conversations reinforce that effective preparedness begins at the local level and depends on strong coordination among federal, state, and local partners. And I want to say how much again how much I appreciate all of you all being here today. Uh Mr. Fugate. Uh, I recently participated in this preparedness expo in Chambers County, uh, where local officials stressed that preparation is key to saving lives.
▶ 3:18:25And as Congress considers reforms to FEMA, what are the most effective steps that FEMA can take to help communities better prepare before a hurricane makes landfall? And where do you believe that the biggest preparedness gap still exists? You got a long resume, and I appreciate your It's not the FEMA fixing act, but this committee uh oversees is the emergency management preparedness grant program. That is a 50/50 cost share program. That means state and locals put up 50%.
▶ 3:18:56And the federal taxpayer puts up 50%. That helps fund in many communities, especially in your district, they couldn't even have an emergency management director out of their budgets. They couldn't afford it. But when it's 50/50, they make it work. And I think that program gives us the basis of having competent emergency managers and the baseline program because I think that's one of the things we always forget. We can do everything for FEMA, but if the state and locals can't execute and run it, we haven't fixed it.
▶ 3:19:24So I think those grant programs that are pre- disaster, especially that program that is a 50/50 match, it's the best investment for the federal taxpayer that builds capabilities. It allows communities to handle disasters that never rise to the federal level, but when the federal level is implemented, it works. The biggest gap, too many people think it won't happen to them, and then they expect somebody to come save them. That's right. And that's why I I'm I'm adamant. The public is part of the resource.
▶ 3:19:54The public is the first responder. They get there before anybody else. We got to quit treating them as victims. Treat them as part of the team. and make it clear. It don't matter what government does. Government ain't gonna get to you fast enough. Most of the time you're going to be rescued by a neighbor. We ought to be building upon that.
▶ 3:20:14Amen. Uh, Southeast Texas has endured devastating storms, and I remember them very vividly. Hurricanes Harvey, Laura, Barl. Looking back on these disasters, what lessons have been learned that Congress should incorporate into FEMA reform that would improve disaster response and long-term recovery for communities that face repeated hurricanes and other than the 50/50 cost share that you were talking about? What else can we do?
▶ 3:20:45Again, I think it's working with the governors and the local communities of when does it make sense because what we don't want to do is and I think this is a real problem. We got too many communities that are waiting for somebody else to come take care of them and they won't invest their own money. That's why I like the 50/50 because that keeps everybody's got skin in the game. But how do we make sure that when we're spending federal taxpayers money, it is buying down the federal taxpayers exposure?
▶ 3:21:11That's why the sliding scale is so critical because it recognizes states that are doing more that have more skin in the game that are buying down their risk and the federal taxpayer should reward that. And for states that are failing there, they shouldn't continue paying the full price.
▶ 3:21:26Amen. Thank you so very much. I appreciate all your service uh Mr. Fugate and thank you all to all you witnesses for being here as well. So, I'll yield back the balance of my time.
▶ 3:21:36Miss Poe.
▶ 3:21:39Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, you know, when FEMA was created, its purpose was simple, to centralize emergency disaster relief so communities could get the help that they need and get get it fast. Uh, states and cities put their lives in the hands of FEMA. Communities like mine believe FEMA will in fact be there for them regardless of their political affiliation or where they live.
▶ 3:22:07But sadly, as it's already been spoken about earlier in our in this hearing, that clearly is no longer the the case. And that is no longer true. Um, and I say that because earlier we heard um the statistics whereby uh since President Trump was sworn in, uh, FEMA has only just approved 23% of those disaster requests from states that have uh, Democratic governors or uh, and
▶ 3:22:38two Democratic uh, senators. And this all while clearly blizzards, heat waves and uh catastrophic rain have only increased. And I I I realize and and and know the response that was given earlier, so I'm not going to ask the question, but make no mistake, FEMA absolutely can benefit from reforms. Uh too often communities are waiting for months or years to uh receive aid.
▶ 3:23:08U Mr. Fugate. Uh you were in New Jersey with President Obama after the hurricane after hurricane uh Irene and know the importance of communication and coordination, an area that could indeed be improved today. Uh yet FEMA has slashed its workforce by 6,000 workers.
▶ 3:23:31it has delayed or eliminated the release of vital funding and resources that state like mine depends on uh Mr. Fugate uh very simply because I know our time is is very short. Yes or no, do mass firing and eliminating funding negatively impact uh FEMA's ability to effectively perform disaster
▶ 3:23:56It's neither yes or no. The simple answer would just say yes and and and move on. The answer is it's very complicated. There's a tendency to think we measure response by number of bodies and seats and that's not how it works. And how many staff we have is really about how effective the staff are and the programs. I think fixing FEMA act addresses the complexity that requires all the staff and it can be done with fewer staff. Remember in the Obama administration my staffing level at the maximum is less than the current staffing level at FEMA.
▶ 3:24:27I well, you know, thank you for that. But here's what I would just say. Just last Friday, President Trump denied disaster aid to four states, including an $84 million request from New Jersey for February's extreme winter storms.
▶ 3:24:46um that in itself once once again I think it's important for us to make sure that we have the ability to provide those services whether or not it is with the ample number of uh employees as as you've mentioned or to making sure that we are not eliminating those very employees who have the wherewithal and the proper training and the ability to perform their job.
▶ 3:25:12So, uh I think that's the important part and we we need not take that make decisions just simply on political um uh decisions. But thank you very much for for that. Again, I think FEMA has been critical in trying to prevent uh catastrophic harm through the agency's uh um disasters uh mitigation funding. Um Mr.
▶ 3:25:40Waller, your group, the National Association of Mutual Insurance Company, has spoken in support of pre- disaster mitigation funding. These programs have been uh critical investments to prevent catastrophic harm. Uh tragically, this administration is gutting that as well. Fortunately, the federal courts have ruled that the administration illegally dismantled the brick and ordered its restoration.
▶ 3:26:11However, the flood mitigation assistance program has had no funding opportunities released for FY fiscal year 25 and fiscal year 26. Um, Mr. Uh, Waller, uh, quickly, can you list three ways in which pre- disaster mitigation programs help prevent costly post uh, disaster uh, rebuilding?
▶ 3:26:36Sure. So, when our, you know, in the FEMA acts, it provides for a retrofit program for our existing housing stock, which is very important. So, those homes will be hardened when they get that money, so they're less likely to have damage or less likely to have severe damage. that saves money on both on the repairs and you know insurance is insurance is going to follow that risk but also with the brick program and the money that's been invested this year.
▶ 3:27:02If the if the infrastru public infrastructure is stronger, then as you heard earlier, we're going to be able to, you know, if the roads are dry, the pumps are working, the lights are on because the substations have been hardened, all of those things, we're going to be able to get in quicker to access to uh assess the damage as the insurance industry and the construction workers are going to be able to follow us more quickly and get those repairs done. So, I think in all those ways, it'll benefit the public.
▶ 3:27:28Thank you so very much. My time has run out, so I will uh thank the chairman and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
▶ 3:27:36Mr. Gallagher.
▶ 3:27:38Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, so uh I've been through far too many disasters in my in my state of California, especially in Northern California. So, I'm I'm all too familiar with FEMA and uh Mr. Fugate and I have uh interacted on many occasions over the years. Uh, but to start off, just to to speak to this politicization issue that keeps getting brought up by the other side. Here's what I know. In California, billions of dollars in FEMA aid have come through.
▶ 3:28:03Uh, in the first Trump administration, uh, when we had the Orville Dam spillway disaster and there was a request for federal funding, it came through from the Trump administration. When we had the the deadly campfire, the deadliest fire in California history, every single federal request for aid came through. And even in the LA fires, $2.7 billion dollars has been allocated to California for the LA fires. So to say that somehow this is being politicized is completely ridiculous.
▶ 3:28:31And in the case in California is exhibit A of that. We've had many disasters. Um and we've we've asked for that aid. And I also, you know, look, FEMA is a little bit like lawyers, right? Everybody hates them until you need them, right? And and I will say there's been many occasions where FEMA has come through and been very helpful. uh and some and some calamities that we've experienced in the state.
▶ 3:28:54Doesn't mean that there doesn't need to be reform and uh appreciate the comments uh of former director Fugate on that on that point. I think many of those things were identified. I want to move into real business here which is let's talk a little about wildfire and and in terms of hardening. Um there's been a real focus on just like full hardening of existing homes. It's number one that's very expensive, especially if you're talking about retroactively doing it to an older home. What about partial hardening and clustering?
▶ 3:29:24Uh, you know, that helps provide community defense. Uh, would might that be actually a lower cost and maybe even more effective way of dealing with wildfire disasters? And maybe I'll go to Mr. Fugate and then Mr. Waller if you wanted to follow up on
▶ 3:29:38A blunt answer, a partial home sale burned down. I mean, it it's it's pretty much everybody's complaining about the cost, but if the home has combustible material exposed to the outside and we get a fire and they start that blowing cuz when you get into paradise, what you found was it wasn't the fire, it was the embers. And once one hit home lit, they were all gone.
▶ 3:30:00The rest of them went too. So, if you're not going to increase the space between the homes, you're not going to enforce the uh, you know, no having any combustibles around there, and you're not going to use building materials that are non-combustible, I don't know if a partial works in these extreme conditions. I mean, we face the same thing utilities when we harden. Do we go underground or we merely harden? So, it's a trade-off. It's a risk decision.
▶ 3:30:22Do we buy down risk enough where it's a good investment or we just setting up the scenario where it will work some of the time but not in the catastrophic wildfire? And again, I realize people they make this all about affordability. I look at total cost of
▶ 3:30:38Will my home be there after the fire? That's what I want to know.
▶ 3:30:42Uh Mr. W and like you know like commu community defense uh certainly clearing around around homes. We have to keep combustible materials from round hose. But you know, clustering is that a function that maybe helps reduce risk.
▶ 3:30:54Yeah. The only thing I would say in addition is that, you know, we start off by talking about the embers and they can fly for miles. And so from the community perspective, yes, if we're from a community perspective, you know, reducing the fuel load, paying more attention to the vegetation, things like that, and making the community more more hardened, then I think that's going to help overall. And then just follow up on that, in the wake of wildfires, especially in places like California, insurance premiums have marketkedly increased.
▶ 3:31:21Uh how do the provisions of the FEMA act uh speed up and improve mitigation funding help make insurance more affordable, especially in a place like California, we've seen rates go up quite a bit.
▶ 3:31:32Sure. Well, I think when the grant money is used for things that we know from building science is that will better hard and protect storm uh houses from wildfire that the that's going to reduce the risk and I think insurance will follow that.
▶ 3:31:45Yeah. Well, that's good news. I mean, we want to do things and that's why I think this legislation is so important. We need to bring down insurance uh premiums, especially in places like California. Um then uh my last question here is hazard mitigation grant program. Uh we've had a lot of issues with that. uh the long lengthy environmental review in obligation. So for example, in Shasta County, FEMA received project deliverables in July of 2023, but EHP review didn't finish until May of this year, 2026.
▶ 3:32:15Um so that's just one example. These delays put critical wildfire mitigation work at risk, especially when the state match funds expire in 2028 and cannot be extended. And in this committee's FEMA act, it would address several of those structural problems we're seeing with those delays. From your experience, what are the most important structural changes FEMA could make to improve that hazard mitigation grant pro program?
▶ 3:32:39Staying with me, I think some of the upfront funding would really help. You know, it gets that money out quick so the work can begin quicker
▶ 3:32:49and I see my time has expired. So, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I I yield back.
▶ 3:32:53Miss Fushi.
▶ 3:32:55Thank you, Mr. chairman and thank you to the witnesses for their testimonies and to um our chair and ranking member for holding this timely briefing today. When Hurricane Helen devastated western North Carolina, lives were lost, bridges were swept away, and businesses and homes were destroyed. Both federal and state investments have proven to be critical in helping rebuild these communities.
▶ 3:33:23Just this weekend, FEMA announced another injection of disaster relief funding for North Carolina totaling $ 48 million. While at the state level, Governor Stein signed a budget bill last week that included more than $700 million for Helen recovery.
▶ 3:33:43While I am immensely grateful that these hard-hit communities continue to receive much needed federal and state relief, there's still a great deal of work left to be done. I think there is bipartisan consensus that FEMA needs to work more efficiently to coordinate disaster relief and recovery efforts. And that's a large part of why we're here today and why the FEMA act is so vital.
▶ 3:34:10But it also has escaped me that despite this consensus, this administration has been making it objectively harder for FEMA to do its job, redirectoring, redirecting rather over a half billion dollars from FEMA to build migrant detention centers, reassigning FEMA case workers to process deportations instead, and making drastic funding cuts and staffing reductions.
▶ 3:34:38Administrator Fugate, can you speak to the ways in which these actions from the administration may be compounding FEMA's struggles to quickly and efficiently provide much needed disaster relief to affected communities across the country.
▶ 3:34:56You know, I don't even think it's the money or the staffing. I think it's the morale. People at FEMA were so scared in the first part of the administration with the uh the way the secretary operated that it was paralysis. They couldn't make decisions. They couldn't authorize anything over $100,000. Of all the damage that occurred in that first part, I'd say it was the morale and fear of FEMA just people doing their jobs. It has more impact than people realize. It isn't the money. The Stafford Act didn't run out of money. There was money there.
▶ 3:35:27They transferred it, but it didn't run out. They move staff around. The issue was, I think, morale. I think that's You have the acting administrator, Bob Fenton, who is a seasoned pro, probably one of the most experienced emergency managers in the country. He's been giving full authority to run that. You now have a nominee going through a confirmation process. Uh, you have a secretary that's letting FEMA do his job. Money is starting to move. There are still issues there, but I would say it was the morale.
▶ 3:35:57Yeah. If you're going to cut staff, you can cut staff. Not the way they did it. I would say more about how FEMA employees were treated, the disrespect, the threats, the fear has had more impact on FEMA being able to do its job. That was a specific person and an adviser that produced that
▶ 3:36:23It's good to hear those changes. Following up on that, um, during his time in office, the president has also significantly cut funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In what ways might this hamper or harm the work of FEMA in regards to National Disaster
▶ 3:36:45FEMA depends upon our partners at National Weather Service for forecast to determine where and how we prepare. We don't wait till the disaster happens. So on weather events, whether it's a forecasted extreme flood event or hurricane, those forecasts are critical because we're going to spend tens of millions of your taxpayers dollars to go get equipment and personnel in place. The better the forecast are, the more likely they have the stuff where they need it when they need it.
▶ 3:37:13If the forecast are not as accurate, that's going to be a problem. The one thing I would say, we've not seen dramatically a change there. And we also saw that after all the cuts, the National Weather Service has gone back to hiring people. But I am still concerned. There are certain areas where yeah, we're only doing radio signs once a day.
▶ 3:37:36The models are still working, but I know that during hurricanes and tornadoes and other severe weather threats, they're doing it was used to do it two to three to four times a day. It made the models more accurate. So, we don't have a definitive case where I can say that's where it failed. We're on the edge.
▶ 3:37:54Thank you for that and I yield back.
▶ 3:37:57Mr. Weed.
▶ 3:37:58Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this and thank you to our witnesses for being here today. Over the past year, Wisconsin, my home state, has experienced two separate severe weather events which resulted in widespread damage to private and public property and subsequently met the requirements for major disaster declarations. thankful that the requests for individual assistance and most of the jurisdictions requesting public assistance were recently approved by the Trump administration.
▶ 3:38:25However, the process gave me an upclose look at um you know the many challenges that the counties face um when disasters strike. Uh, Miss Shang, in your testimony, you cited a concerning statistic that 20% of your members um that with open public assistance claims process like up to four to six years and it was 28% at processing times exceeding six years.
▶ 3:38:51Under the current reimbursement model, delays like this present a significant threat to areas which are forced to bear the upfront costs for that for repairs during that that time frame and lack the financial means obviously to to do so.
▶ 3:39:06I'm glad that the FEMA act would transition the public assistance program to a grant-based model and I was hoping you could speak a little bit on that as to um how that would help prevent future backlogs and what else Congress should consider in the coming years to help with that.
▶ 3:39:25Absolutely. I think that's one of the most important aspects of this legislation is uh currently transitioning to a uh I'm sorry, a grantsbased model rather than a reimbursement model. So um when you have a reimbursement model, the local and the county is forced to uh use their own funding or take on debt um to handle the recovery and it takes years that we've shown um a very very long time to put that money back which could be used for other needs.
▶ 3:39:54And so if we can go to a formula based model and really across the board when you speak to counties they just need the resources in a shorter period of time more upfront um and I think if that part of this act gets passed we would really move forward in disaster assistance in this country.
▶ 3:40:10So obviously there's some that are still waiting have been waiting for four, five, six years. What what can be done for those jurisdictions?
▶ 3:40:17Well I think the frustration is every project's different. I mean Mr. Fugate knows that. Um I think if the rules change in the mid cycle that will delay a project. I think if a change of personnel not on the not only on the federal side but on our side too we lose staff as well and we and then you know if you get an experienced person who was with you during that hurricane and then they leave and a new person comes in it really sets you back.
▶ 3:40:41Um, so I think an overall simplification of um, the whole system um, making the rules simpler, making counties understand what the rules are at the get-go um, would really move us forward a lot in terms of that and reduce the processing times.
▶ 3:40:57You had also mentioned there's a lot of bureaucratic red tape.
▶ 3:41:00Throughout this process um,
▶ 3:41:03and I've heard from constituents across our district, too. It's obviously a very um a difficult thing to navigate disaster recovery. Specifically smaller counties, they often lack grant writers um or technical staff to navigate the red tape in the first place. So something that the universal disaster assistance application in the FEMA act obviously is meant to address.
▶ 3:41:25In your opinion, what else can we do here in Congress to navigate um or to make navigating federal disaster easier? Well, I think as you mentioned, the universal disaster application would absolutely help survivors.
▶ 3:41:40Um, we are left, we have challenges to put back a water system, a sewer system, um, to bring our own public networks back up to place, but we're also in charge of helping vulnerable people, people who are outside of their homes, people who need assistance, drawing down the benefits from the federal government. So, that would certainly be help. And then the mitigation piece. I think I come from the greater New Orleans area and and we really speak we can speak about mitigation. Katrina happened to us in 2005.
▶ 3:42:07Probably changed emergency management as we are in a country. Um we went back the federal government went back and built a hurricane reduction system. Um it was an investment that was made and we saw with hurricane Ida in 2021. It worked. It worked. We did not see the flooding that we saw in Katrina. to not see people on roofs of their home hoping that helicopters would rescue them. Um the mitigation works and I think the counties um being able to mitigate um their risk. We know what our risks are in our community.
▶ 3:42:35Um and having that mitigation dollars and changing that formula would be crucial to um changing the outlook of our
▶ 3:42:43All right. Thanks. Uh Mr. Mat, you cited an example of a co-op in Arizona um that saw its entire system destroyed by a windstorm. Yet due to the remote nature of the territory, it didn't meet the threshold for disaster declaration. This is the exact fear that I hear from my constituents. Of course, we're in very rural area. Um you know, that small localized disasters will leave their areas in a state of disrepair and and um unable to access federal aid.
▶ 3:43:08So if you could just explain a little bit about FEMA acts approach to lower disaster thresholds and how that would fix
▶ 3:43:15Well clearly this is an issue where these more spar sparsely populated areas where the infrastructure still costs the same to replace. We have fewer people who can shoulder the burden. Um the FEMA act creates a much better set of uh criteria for allowing those locations to be to be qualifying for FEMA aid. It's one of the reasons we're such strong supporters of this legislation.
▶ 3:43:37All right. Thank you. I yield back.
▶ 3:43:43Miss Hy, you're recognized.
▶ 3:43:46Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, first of all, I want to thank the panelists for being here. This is uh critically important. Um, and Republicans and Democrats have long recognized that FEMA is too slow, too bureaucratic, and often fails to help communities rebuild stronger in in an effort to prevent fraud.
▶ 3:44:10There are administrative rules that are incredibly burdensome for victims of uh natural disasters who have lost all ability to provide documentation, who have lost their homes. I know for us in the 2020 fires, we had a lot of our manufactured home parks where our farm workers and low-income seniors live that were just destroyed and they had no ability to have, you know, to build back.
▶ 3:44:38We are still in Oregon waiting on $371,000 from a 2016 disaster and millions of dollars from our 2020 fires. um where we lost over uh 1.2 million acres.
▶ 3:44:57Um in 2024 we had 1.9 million acres burned um and roughly a $350 million in response cost and we expect that this year we'll have a really bad fire season as well. So, you know, before 911, FEMA was an independent agency and that allowed FEMA to focus on disaster response as a cabinet level agency.
▶ 3:45:26Um, we now have between 30 and 40% of FEMA employees that are temporary employees because previously you'd have a natural disaster and maybe four, five, six months later you'd have another one. So, you know, you didn't want to have people there permanently. We now have year round disasters. There's hurricanes, there's floods, there's tornadoes, there's fires, there's ice storms. And I think that under DHS and Mr.
▶ 3:45:52Fugate, you pointed out how when Director Gnome was heading up DHS, it had a a a terrible effect on the morale of employees who again couldn't do their job and were concerned about the politization of um FEMA. Disaster response should be nonpartisan and that's absolutely um critical. So, uh, Mr.
▶ 3:46:22Atzel and I introduced the Power Act in response, you know, from myself to the 2024 ice storms after hearing firsthand from utilities and my five rural electric co-ops that um, FEMA would pay to rebuild infrastructure as it was as opposed to how it needed to be. Um, so this is why I am supporting this bill. Mr.
▶ 3:46:48Mat, I would like you to talk about specifically because I represent so many rural communities where our rural electric co-ops are critical in preventing wildfire and also in the response. What would you like to see from FEMA and for us to do in a bipartisan way to make things easier to prevent and then respond to disasters?
▶ 3:47:12Well, uh, first of all, for FEMA, this legislation we're talking about, the fixed FEMA act, uh, addresses many of these concerns, including what you just mentioned, which is there are opportunities when we can build something back in a better way and not just replace asis. And we've got lots of examples, and we've heard some in this hearing, where because it's restricted, you got to build it exactly as it was. That doesn't make sense going forward in terms of the future risk we have. Outside of this bill that we're talking about this hearing, the Fix Our Forest Act would be very helpful. It's passed the House. We'd love to see it move through the Senate.
▶ 3:47:42But again, for wildfire mitigation from like a utility standpoint, the Fix Our Forest Act is a critical uh opportunity. It passed the House overwhelmingly. We'd love to see that signed into law.
▶ 3:47:53Well, we don't deal with that in the Transportation Infrastructure Committee, but fundamentally, I know that every agency and every office, mine included, is only as strong as the staff that are in that agency. And if we're kneecapping people's ability to actually do their job by putting them out to do immigration enforcement when we actually need them responding to disasters, um I think that that is a poor use of our resources.
▶ 3:48:21And I will once again say I will work with anyone, Democrat or Republican, to work to make FEMA an independent cabinet level agency. Uh again, Mr. Fugate, I know you don't like quick yes or no questions. Do you think that's a good idea?
▶ 3:48:38It's better than what we got.
▶ 3:48:41Amen to that, sir. And with that, I
▶ 3:48:44Mr. Herd.
▶ 3:48:46Thank you very much. Uh, Mr. Chairman, uh, Mr. Fugate, if Congress passes this bill, the FEMA act of 2025, what measures should we expect to see improve in the next 5 years? FEMA gets the money out faster with greater accountability with less overhead and cost.
▶ 3:49:08And how will that be measured?
▶ 3:49:09You measure it and you get congressional budget office has to score this is go how much does it cost to get a dollar of assistance out? How much does it take us a dollar to get here to the mayor? You know, in some of the smaller disasters I
▶ 3:49:21So what should it be? Like how much
▶ 3:49:23you're probably spending a couple bucks to get one dollar out the door.
▶ 3:49:27So I would go what is it now? What does it go to? I would look at the timelines of FEMA resolving this, getting the money out the door, and can they do it with fewer staff? This is really, I think, where the savings in this bill is, is reducing the number of staff and the time it takes to get the money in the hands of the local jurisdictions so they can start building and that will save money.
▶ 3:49:51How long would it take for what should the time frame for measuring this be? Should it be one year after enactment, two years, three years? How long do you think trickle down? I wouldn't give them a week. They already have this authority. They can do this. They just refuse to both at the local, state, and federal level. You're just making it man mandatory. So, they already have the mechanisms. We've already done this. This should not take a year to implement.
▶ 3:50:14This can be implemented, I think, within weeks because once the bill passes, they're giving a time to phase it in. But the idea of doing quick grants based upon estimates was already given to FEMA in the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act. It was optional
▶ 3:50:32and people both on the federal side and state and local thought they were going to lose out and didn't use it.
▶ 3:50:38This makes it this is the way we're going to do it. So the fact that they can already do it and the fact I've already done it means it's implementable today. It will not take and do not give them three years. That just ensures they'll wait you out until somebody else changes their mind.
▶ 3:50:52Got it. Okay. Thank you. Very, very helpful. Mr. Waller, disaster prep preparedness isn't just a public safety issue. It's an affordability issue. Everyone wants to lower insurance premiums, but insurers ultimately price risk. In your experience, what's the single most effective action a community can take to become more insurable? Is there something that actually moves the needle from the underwriting You know, I think the FEMA act really helps with that with the mitigation on two fronts.
▶ 3:51:20One, through the brick brick program making public infrastructure harder. So, it's going to survive storms. That's going to help. So, after a there's a disaster, we're going to be able to get in more quickly because the roads are going to be dry, the power is going to be on, things like that, and you can get people behind us to do the work. And then I think just communities being harder. you know, it's they're going to cost less money to insure because there's going to be less damage.
▶ 3:51:48So, when you're able to, you know, control risk like that, that's going to help with insurance.
▶ 3:51:54Thank you. Uh, Mr. Matson, having represented rural electric co-ops before going to Congress, uh, I can appreciate the important mission that electric co-ops have after a disaster, get power back on quickly and safely. From your perspective, what's the biggest obstacle that FEMA creates or could remove to speed up restoration, power restoration after a wildfire disaster? I
▶ 3:52:15I think the obstacles are addressed in this legislation, but in no particular order. I think the 120day limit for the the very initial funding that would be very helpful for co-ops. I think the the preser the ability to to pay for loan interest if the there's a long time before FEMA provides funding for permanent work, uh that's helpful to co-ops. And finally, the the predesaster mitigation funding component of this bill is really uh a step forward in terms of allowing electric cooperatives to get in front of this issue to some degree.
▶ 3:52:44That's what we've been talking about for a lot of different sectors, but for us that would be very helpful.
▶ 3:52:47Talk to me a little bit about that mitigation. So, if we spend billions of dollars responding to disasters, if we're shifting, if Congress shifts more money to hardening the electric grid beforehand, where would rural electric cooperatives invest the most? What what makes the most sense to put those dollars to right away?
▶ 3:53:06In the co-op world, everyone says we're unique, so it's tough to give you a answer about their
▶ 3:53:11You've seen one co-op, you've seen one
▶ 3:53:12Exactly. You know the you know the phrase. Uh that being said, I think each co-op would make what's in the best interest for their community. We heard uh just from the the representative from Oregon about wildfire mitigation is a big uh hardening component in that area. Other areas it may be for flooding. So different locations are going to dictate where co-ops would invest those funds.
▶ 3:53:30Okay. I think last thing I'll say is I think um Congressman Collins said his district in Georgia had more electric co-ops than Colorado's third. I'm not sure I have to dispute that with Congressman Collins. We have quite a few great electric cooperatives in in western and southern Colorado. And with that, uh Mr. Chair, I yield back.
▶ 3:53:47Mr. Andrew,
▶ 3:53:50thank the chairman. I want to thank the chairman. He's delayed his own testimony so that everybody else would have a chance here to go first. And he's a gentleman. Um, I want to thank the witnesses. This is the part of the hearing where you all are tired. Seriously, it's been going on for hours and the questions do become a little bit repetitive. But we're members of Congress, so you know, we're not going to let the opportunity go anyhow. we're still going to talk, including me.
▶ 3:54:18And um I I guess I would say, you know, it's sort of indicative FEMA where we are with America a little bit. We can do better. America is innovative. It's smart. It's hard working. It's faster. It's stronger. Um and it's sort of this whole FEMA problem I I think to some degree indicates um how we need to do better. And by the way, let me say this. It's something we can fix.
▶ 3:54:46You know, health care is a huge issue in our country as well. It's really complicated. I'm a dentist. I, you know, been involved in some of those conversations and issues. This is something we can fix and we can fix relatively rapidly. And that's why we want to keep speaking about it over and over again because it's been awful. And it isn't. And by the way, Mr. Fugate, I I want to thank you all for being here. You all are great because I did watch even when I wasn't here. I'm jockeying two committees today.
▶ 3:55:14Your testimony is candid, honest, and sincere. All of you. But I just want to point you out. It was not political. It was focused. And thank you for your testimony. But to all of you, you know, it's not about the amount of money really. I've seen sometimes where we throw money. I've been in involved in politics a lot of years. It's not about the number of people that are working. Don't get me wrong, staff and money is important, but in itself is not the answer.
▶ 3:55:43And God help us sometimes makes it worse. And we can do so much better. Um, you know, I'm at the Jersey Shore. I'm in South Jersey for those of you familiar with it. We get whipped pretty good. You know, you think of Florida and we've got some communities that are on the top 10 of most vulnerable communities in the United States of America, places like Kate May. And I remember I've been there. I've been a county commissioner. I was a state assemblyman, a state senator, all before Congress.
▶ 3:56:12Man, on the ground when people were going through this stuff and they hired a bunch of people, tons of people came in and sometimes you were getting two and three different answers. You shouldn't need a PhD and government bureaucracy if you're just a a a victim of these storms. We've got to make it simple and easy and fast and effective. So, and I think we can do it. I think we can do it. We know that the delayed recoveries uh are nearly as damaging as the storms are themselves.
▶ 3:56:42We know that there's more than a thousand disaster emergency and fire management declar declarations that still remain opening. Some remain open, some are dating back decades. Um, the current SI system stretches across more, and I'm looking to make sure I'm right, and I am. 30 federal entities in total. It's too much. It doesn't work. It's bureaucratic paralysis. So, let me let me ask some questions.
▶ 3:57:10Former administrator, I'm going to give you a little break because everybody's been asking you a lot. Uh, and I and I think your answers were good. President Shen, local governments are usually the first to respond and they're the last to finish rebuilding because they only have so many resources. Which federal, if you if you can, which federal requirements create the greatest delays?
▶ 3:57:31Uh where were the greatest inefficiencies and where can we shift things closer to the local level while making sure that there's no corruption and there's still
▶ 3:57:43What was largely discussed is the public assistance program. I mean, I'm that's what we're familiar with that that funds the the uh the local assets that we own and that's what we're largely talking about uh in terms of the reimbursement for for counties. And so um again, the smaller communities are absolutely overwhelmed um by the disaster itself.
▶ 3:58:06And then as I mentioned, there's a financial disaster behind the scenes that they have to cough up a lot of expenses um across the community. they might have limited borrowing capacity um to do that. And so the upfront money that we could get from FEMA um would be just critical. And the we're talking about the cost, but we need to look at the cost of how long it takes for a community to get back on its feet.
▶ 3:58:30The longer it takes and the slower the recovery that we get back that the longer the a business takes to open, um we lose our revenue. That is our source. That is our fuel for local government. We lose revenue, our sales tax. can just interject. You're so right. I mean, I remember Superstorm Sandy and other storms. Jersey Shores has gotten hit a lot. Businesses just never came back. Some of them they got killed. Yes.
▶ 3:58:52And and we could have done better. So, I thank you. Thank you for your answer. I know it. Um, real quickly, Mr. I want to say your name right. Shivitz
▶ 3:59:01did pretty good. Okay. Um, besides the incredible reforms that are in this bill, and damn it, we should do this thing if we really want to make a difference. We don't talk about it enough almost in America. We get so tied up in the political stuff. But anyhow, um, anything else besides what's in the bill do you think could really be
▶ 3:59:23Well, we we've talked a lot about the incentives and the sliding scale and and how that's going to help states. There's been mention uh by Mr. Kelly of a of a a bill to provide tax incentives from the federal level for households and businesses to help harden. And I think that's that's one thing that certainly the chamber has been
▶ 3:59:44It's a good idea. Thank you. Thank you all, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
▶ 3:59:48Mr. Brnahan.
▶ 3:59:49Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for persevering to this hour in the day. Uh, but this one, this subject's quite important to me. Nor Eastern Pennsylvania is certainly no stranger to natural disasters, especially from flooding. From last year's flash floods in Honesdale to Hurricane Agnes in 1972 and tropical storm Lee in 2011, these storms devastated our entire region.
▶ 4:00:18Uh in the Wyoming Valley especially, the question isn't when the next flood if the next flood comes, it's most certainly when is the next flood going to hit. And once you smell flood mud, uh, it's a sensation that you will never forget. So that's why it is so important that the committee passed the FEMA Act, which includes my bipartisan bill, the Smart Act, which directs FEMA to figure out whether its mitigation dollars are actually working.
▶ 4:00:46Vital programs like the brick program need to be focused on actual mitigation so communities in northeastern Pennsylvania can get to work rebuilding and reinforcing their levies. Um I I don't remember 1972 Hurricane Agnes, but I certainly remember the photographs of the devastation. And in 2011, uh we saw something similar.
▶ 4:01:11Um and it was truly devastating where entire communities property property tax bases were completely eroded. Um, and I've heard from several communities that we have put in the timeline to work to meet every federal standard and they still get stuck behind an outdated flood map that doesn't reflect any of it. So my first question, Mr.
▶ 4:01:33Waller, um, does completed mitigation work undertaken by communities, does that traditionally translate into lower uh, NFIP premiums for homeowners in that area? And if so, if if so, how long does that process normally take to see the actual rebates or the savings?
▶ 4:01:56I don't know the actual time that that that you that there usually is between seeing the mitigation and the um the change in premiums, but I can tell you that the the market is healthy and it's competitive. And when you have a healthy competitive market, you're going to see as soon as someone sees the experience and they show that in their rates, then I think there's pressure on the industry to follow suit.
▶ 4:02:20I think it's after those investments are made, we need to make sure that those investments are actually paying off and generating an ROI because it's certainly leading our communities and political subdivisions and creating apprehension because they obviously want to do right by their constituents and their friends and their neighbors, but ultimately they want to actually see that ROI and having those premium dollars reduced.
▶ 4:02:45Something that we also have seen because of the geographic location, the some of the property owners are grandfathered in from escalation of those premiums. But if they were to ever transition that property to a family member or sell it, the next buyer uh certainly isn't given that same stature of of increased protection.
▶ 4:03:07So, we've seen property values of $300,000 homes now because they're inside of a flood map that's already been rectified or correct corre it's been corrected. It doesn't flood there anymore. The proper mechanisms have been deployed, but they're still inside of that zone and those families are having a hard time selling that property because of the proposed increase.
▶ 4:03:29Um, so I'm gonna ask uh Administrator Fugate, if we want FEMA to be more proactive than reactive, would treating flood map reassessments with the same urgency incentivize communities to make these investments in the first place? And I think all of these questions tie together because we want to get to the root cause of allowing the communities to make the necessary investments. But how do we incentivize these communities to be proactive instead of reactive?
▶ 4:04:01Just fixing the flood zones isn't the answer. And here's a problem. Just because I'm not in a zone A where I have to do mandatory purchase doesn't mean I won't flood. And too often the people drop flood insurance and become an uninsured lost. Flooding is growing faster than any other hazard, including wildfires. It's more costly than any other hazard, including wildfires, and it's occurring in areas. So, not in the high hazard risk area. Those maps are insurance maps. They're not flood prediction maps.
▶ 4:04:29But I do agree that if a community can go in there and do the mitigation and move that out of a flood zone, it isn't an indication they don't need to buy flood insurance, but it does reduce the cost, and that should happen relatively quick. However, remember flood maps have to be processed, passed, and adopted by ordinance by that And there's often disagreements on how much should come in or come out. And I've been on the other end of that.
▶ 4:04:55But yes, if we are able to do mitigation, we can take people out of the high-risisk area, not negate they need flood insurance, but lower that cost and reflect that in the maps which are adopted by ordinance and then are enforced by ordinance. Yes, we should be able to move that faster.
▶ 4:05:13I I appreciate that. And in closing, I just uh want to recognize our National Line Worker Appreciation Day. And as a former electrical contractor myself, I've seen their work up close, the hours, the conditions, the risk it takes to get power back on so families and and businesses can start to recover. Uh sometimes they don't get the credit they deserve and nearly not as often as I would like to see. So, I want to say thank you. And with that, I yield.
▶ 4:05:41Gentleman yields back. I want to thank each of our panelists for being here today. Pretty much all of my questions have have already been asked and answered uh from all kinds of uh uh various perspectives throughout the course of the hearing here. So, no more questions for me. But I do want to thank you. This has been a I think a really great and exhaustive uh uh hearing with a lot of really uh good information shared. and so greatly appreciate that. Uh the committee now stands adjourned.