bradford, of fox digital media. >> host: lawrence korb served in the reagan administration as assistant defense secretary and here to talk about u.s. policy in afghanistan. so many stores have come out and the last few days about issues in afghanistan policy, including this morning where "the guardian" reports a provincial cease-fire with the taliban this morning. how is that government approaching the cease-fires? what i've been trying to do? guest: what they are trying to do is separate those who joined the taliban because they don't have enough money, because they have no other way of making a living, from those who are committed to their philosophy of very strict interpretation of islam. if you can break those apart, obviously you will have less

people trying to destabilize the government. host: somebody recently actually describe what you just described as, if there is a version of the taliban, a taliban lite, for lack of a better term, not engaged with u.s. forces, separated from the militant taliban we are seeing. guest: that's right. i think that is very, very important. people have no other way to make a living and the taliban offer a way to make ends meet, particularly of the government is not in the area. whereas those committed to restoring afghanistan to what it was back before the united states invaded in 2001. host: larry korb is with us until 10:00 a.m. eastern. the numbers -- we will continue to take your

twitter comments and also via e- mail as well, so we will get to your calls momentarily. late last week, an article from "the new york times" won a shift in policy regarding our products. they write the strategy will shift from wiping out opium poppy crops, which senior officials acknowledged that served only to turn poor farmers into enemies, new operations are already being mounted to a trip -- attack, not the crops, but the drug runners and the drug lords. that is a fine tune it can't come is in it, for policy? guest: i think it is a smart policy. the previous ambassador and afghanistan has come from colombia -- and this was opposed by the military and the nato partners. what you need to do is go after the criminals, those profiting. i would go one step further. talking about, just buy the stuff from these people until you can develop the big develop

an alternative way -- from these people until you can develop an alternative way. host: the administration is putting new troops. the marines made an enormous initiative into the helmand province. guest: i think it is about time. basically after 2007, the chairman of the joint chiefs sighing -- we only had some 30,000 troops. with the increase that president obama has put in, we could be close to 70,000. that, i think, would enable us to secure areas and hold them until we can do the reconstruction. host: calls for lawrence korb, philadelphia on the democrat line. caller: i would like to thank you guys for c-span. and i appreciate lawrence korb' s work at the center for american progress, my favorite website. guest: thank you. caller: do you think eventually

we will be able to leave afghanistan anytime soon? guest: i think we have a year or year and a half to turn around the security situation. and while we're doing that, we need to train more of the afghan security forces -- the army and police. if you do that, then i think you can begin to cut down the number of troops there. but it is not going to happen overnight because we neglected for far too long. host: the british is under increasing pressure from their citizens about their presence in afghanistan. what do you hear about how committed in terms of years? guest: of the british government is committed -- the british people are beginning to wonder because last month we had the highest numbers of casualties -- action to come in july. we have 30 americans died and 26 coalition forces died. and i think the real problem, challenge for the obama administration, is going to be

the dutch and canadians who actually had set deadlines. the british have not. there is pressure. host: one of the deadlines? -- what are the deadline? guest: out by 2011. host: afghan forces -- dearth of capable afghan forces complicate mission and south. they say some quit because they are reluctant to work in the violence out and others are expelled to do drug use. the afghan troops here are heavily defendant -- dependent on western forces, are hesitating to take on greater responsibilities. guest: that is the challenge. we ignored that. the total afghan security forces, an army of 160,000 -- in a country larger than iraq. we have neglected it so long. host: this report in "the post" on saturday talks about some of the issues they had with

literacy among afghan troops and police. guest: no doubt about it. it is very hard to train people when they obviously can't understand the manuals. the real challenge, i think, is we waited so long we may have missed the golden moment. that is really the tragedy because we had it actually where we needed to be in late 2001. we diverted our attention to iraq and resources and this thing is allowed to go downhill. host: how is the situation with the pakistan, the taliban complicating efforts? guest: what has happened is if we drive the taliban out of afghanistan, they go into pakistan and regroup and then they can come back again. and the pakistani government finally begun to move against them after the taliban came very close to the capital of islamabad. but that is a challenge. you will never get pakistan right unless you get afghanistan under control. but even if he did afghanistan

under control, you will have a big problem with pakistan. host: minnesota, your comment or question? caller: it sounds like to have the problems with the drugs and poppe is being raised. the way i understand it, russia used to buy most of the commodities raised, the food commodities from afghanistan. and i am sure they would be glad to do it again, you know? if all of these countries in the world are worried about drugs -- and training people and so forth. it would definitely help the citizens and they afghanistan people. the vacant row other stuff other than half days. if you are just going to pay for one crop, go do it and burn it. host: efforts have been made to get them to grow other crops. guest: violence and this --

security situation deteriorated so they could not get it to market and the taliban and other criminals are willing to buy opium. the caller makes a good point. the ossian's are helpful in afghanistan. in fact, when president obama went over to russia they agreed to allow us to fly supplies over because they are concerned about the opium -- they have a big drug problem in russia. paul host: he writes britain is enveloped in scandals concerning lack of helicopters for the troops. does america have enough equipment for the job? guest: we do now, but we did not up until very recently we gave it sentences. the british do have a challenge to get enough helicopters because it is a place -- it is very hard to drive around given not in this terrain. guest: have we secured a supply line? there was concern, i think year's exxon. do we have a secure supply line in afghanistan?

guest: we do now after president obama went over to russia. host: dave on our democrats line. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i was wondering if you believe the war in afghanistan is a war we can end war is the objective to capture osama bin laden and the al qaeda leadership still? do you think that they are in pakistan? are they still in afghanistan? and what kind of commitment from the defense department and the obama administration over the next 10 years? guest: our goal in afghanistan is to ensure that it does not become a haven for groups like al qaeda, terrorist groups with global reach, and to ensure that afghanistan does not become a threat to the other countries in the region. those are your short-term goals

that you really need to accomplish we would -- need to accomplish. we would like to get a society in a place where the citizens would have a different -- decent life. i think given the troops we put in now, we are close to 70,000, 68,000 by the time all of gotten in there. we will see if that begins to turn the situation around. we have afghan election coming up in august. we will see how that goes. it looks like it will be a vibrant election. at one time we thought hamid karzai would whisked through but now it looks like it will be contested and may have a run off. host: what can you tell us about this picture in "the new york times" about dr. of della -- abdullah. it guest: he is concerned about the corruption of the hermit

karzai government. the fact he is willing to challenge his former boss, that he is willing to take this on -- and i offered to debate and hamid karzai did not show up. i think this is a hopeful sign for afghanistan. host: north carolina. go ahead. caller: i am not republican or democrat -- i think the republicans have no need for minorities and democrats pretty much ignore. that being said, i think going after the dealers themselves instead of the crops is a bad mistake. as you see in the inner-city is, we go after dealers all the time and that does not stop anything. it pacifies the general public for a while. i think we have to take a firm stance and destroyed the crops. they are not really affecting the rich. that is just how i feel about it. i am not a politician from you guys award in may but that is how i feel. guest: i think one of the

reasons you have to get the people who are profiting from the drug trade, basically they are using those profits to fund the insurgency. that is what i think we want to stop. and if we can buy them from the farmers, they themselves would have time until they can develop alternative sources of living. so i think we have to be careful about where the drug money goes in afghanistan as compared to where it goes in the united states. host: new york on the republican line for lawrence korb. caller: i'm disappointed to ask mr. korb -- afghanistan and iraq are under central command. the fact that we are saying -- u.s. and we took our eye off of afghanistan when it still has control of the u.s. military is incorrect. i think afghanistan is a nato operation. even if we did not put the entire force in there, the allies did nothing the whole time to help solve the

situation. guest: let me make a couple of comments. nato actually had as many troops as we did in their of until president obama came in. where roughly each at 32,000 or 33,000 troops. central command, actually what happened is admiral fallon, who was the head of central command before general petraeus, wanted to put more emphasis on afghanistan and this went against bush administration policies and when it became public resign. host: florida, james on the democrats' line. caller: concerning multiple deployments of troops between iraq and afghanistan and those being pulled out of iraq and served three or four tours and they are going to afghanistan, has there been serious discussion about some kind of draft being reinstituted? guest: there should be. i think as a country we let the military down. the volunteer military was never designed to fight the long wars.

what we have done to the men and women particularly in ground forces is a disgrace. i would have gone back to a draft right after 2001 when the country was willing to sacrifice and we knew we were going to have these conflicts, particularly when the bush administration decided they were going to go into iraq as well afghanistan. but your point is well taken. what we have done -- we as a country, our politicians and military leaders, as a country really should feel very bad about it. host:@ @ @ @ @ '%@ @ @ @ @ @ @~e

last call is because so many of these troops served so many tours, they have tremendous amount of experience dealing with an insurgency in and i think that will help in afghanistan because they are not just new to this whole counter insurgency million. -- milieu. host: we have a captive in afghanistan. a picture. what is the latest? guest: the latest as we know he is alive, at least was when he made the videotape. secretary gates and admiral mullen have complained about using prisoners for propaganda purposes. but i think what this should tell us, when americans get captured we expect them to be treated humanely, unfortunately some of the ways we have treated prisoners since 2001 has not, and that is why our military objected when the bush

administration and the justice department wanted to use all of these harsh interrogation techniques because they were concerned about americans being captured. host: frederick, md., on the republican line. caller: during the bush administration we spent about $10 billion to $12 billion on pakistan and all went to military and they put it into the eastern border in reference to india instead of spending some of that money on domestic situations to make the people be more inclined to like the united states and make the country more civil. secondly, what hamid karzai, there is some much corruption, i don't know what we are going to do with that. guest: you make sonntag good points. one is about the $11 billion we gave to pakistan after september 11. we did not monitor where it went and unfortunately it went to buying weapons that were more suited dealing with what the

pakistanis sees as they're major threat, from india. now what the kerr-lugar bill, it will go toward economic development. the military aid has to go through counter insurgency. hamid karzai startup well, he has become corrupt and that is why i think a good sign with this election, that are viable candidates. so hopefully if the afghan people feel as you do, they will put someone else and there. host: orlando, florida. glen on the democrats' line. caller: thank you for having the show. lawrence, i wanted to just touch on one of your points where you were talking about how we could actually buy a lot of the opium from the afghan people and help them in the meantime while we figure out how to control that market. it is actually one of the best

things we could do. opium -- i don't think people realize it -- but it is one of the most prescribed medications in the country. one of the most prescribed in the world. all of your pain killers, codeine -- and out of all the drugs taken in the world, only 8% for people who are actually using heroin, which is the synthetics from opium, and it has its change the and the last 40 or 50 years, relatively the same. so the issue in buying them back, i think we have the issue of action getting the pharmaceutical companies to agree with us. guest: i think in a good point, and at the center for american progress, my colleagues have been arguing that for quite awhile because you find, for example, some countries like turkey do that and you are right, a lot of it can go to

medicinal purposes. host: does your organization considered russian covert military intervention in afghanistan when forming consultation in the u.s.? guest: the russians have been very helpful overall in afghanistan, basically because they do not want to see that instability come into their country, they do want -- do not want to see the open. are they involved? every country looks after its own interest. but a lot of people think the russians are trying to say, we will show you how you will lose like we did. i think that eric is behind us. host: you bring a great perspective from your period of time in the right demonstration and early 1980's, not long after which the russians were ousted from afghanistan with a great deal of u.s. support. guest: no doubt about it. when people use the analogy, we had something about 250,000 people in afghanistan on our

side. we were providing very sadistic it weapons, stinger missiles that shot helicopters down. the russians were horrible. they killed 1 million people. 5 million left -- when they were there they mined the whole country, so they were supportive. when we went into afghanistan, 84% supported as, now down to roughly 50% because the way we handle but since then. but it is completely different. host: why did turn around? why were we not able to maintain the support of the afghan people at the time the russians were expelled to the point it became safe-haven for taliban and possibly osama bin laden? guest: the first president bush said, we want to let us focus our attention elsewhere. and i was just over an pakistan -- one of the things people are concerned about. are we a disposable ally? you come when you need as and when you achieve your objectives -- the molly line

host: government officials? guest: and people. we did, the same way pakistan help us against the russians in afghanistan and after it was over we washed our hands of it. and i think we've got to be in the area for a long haul. host: good morning to leave on our independent line. caller: hi. i just want to say that they are misleading the people because the conflict with iraq and iran, a lot of the middle east has been going on since the 1950's. you have the i ran-contra affair, all directly related with iraq. you had the hostages that were taken in iran, with people that i worked with a and i knew were involved -- were part of the hostages that were taken in iran at the time. then you have the illegal war in

pakistan during the reagan administration. all of these work illegal assaults on these countries and then you wonder why people are coming after us here in the u.s. and non of this stuff is being talked about to the public. also, who gave george bush judicial authority to overrule constitutional law? host: several items to respond to. guest: i think if you start with the last one, congress did authorize the president to go into afghanistan and iraq and the majority of the american people supported him. but the caller makes a good point. we have a long history. iran had a democratic government and we would that of the british over through its in 1953 and put the shah and power, was no democrat, and authoritarian. between the war between iran and iraq we were helping iraq and

the iranians remembered that. interestingly enough, iran- contra when we send the missiles to israel and israel sent it to iran so the iranians could use against the iraqis. host: he used the term illegal war in the reagan administration, talking about afghanistan, but the bottom line is eventually afghanistan was flipped and the russians were out and the afghanis reason why, but with our armed supported that was never cleared through congress. guest: it definitely was. if he saw the movie "charlie wulsin swarmer," it was congress who was pushing to send the equipment -- "charlie wilson's wore the tiered iran contra, that is why it was a scandal, because they did not get permission to send missiles to israel and sent to iran because they were using the profits to fund operations in central america which the congress had prohibited. host: texas, thomas on the

republican line. caller: good morning. i used to work for unilever for 21 years -- it is pronounced unileever. afghanistan, a certain path with the british road, the 600 through the valley of death. guest: tiber pass. caller: that's it. if al qaeda and bonds could be held up in that past because everybody knows it would only take a handful of troops to hold off a whole army in there. and if you want to look for them, that is probably where they will be in that area, you will be able -- he will be able to move from where he is at to that area quickly. guest: i think thomas makes a

good point. that. is -- the british joe airline between afghanistan and pakistan. the people there do not recognize it. they are mainly pashtun, they live there. they give support to groups like al qaeda and the television. i don't think we will go in there, that is why we are using the drone's right now to go after the leadership and we are hoping the pakistani military will go from swat valley after they get that under control and hopefully into south waziristan, part of this area. host: in a recent "part affairs the tiered their recent article. -- recent article in "foreign affairs. com

host: are they any farther along now? guest: i don't think so. president obama is right, you need a comprehensive strategy. you need to have economics and reconstruction. and this has to be part of that. i don't think they are there yet. i think general mcchrystal, now we have a new strategy, that this will be part of what he does. he is doing a 60-day review and i think once that is done they will be able to move in that direction. host: a famous " see about afghanistan -- where some buyers go to die. guest: the graveyard of empires. host: how does the u.s. overcome? guest: again, we are not there. i think our leaving iraq is very important. what president bush agreed to before he left office. shows we are not there as occupiers. yes, the british were run out

and then it came back three decades later and took control. i think you overstate it and people have compared it to vietnam. all of these historical analogies, i think, are not quite appropriate given the way the situation there is now. host: missouri, democratic collar. -- caller. guest: with the taliban making money from opium, we use a pair phrase jeb stuart -- the mostest money and take the opium and process it as pharmaceuticals and distributed to hospitals. that stuff is valuable. that is my only comment. guest: i agree with you. certain countries do do it. certainly it is a short-term gap to keep the taliban getting the profits to fund the insurgency, i think it will help us get the situation under control.

host: joe from athens, ga., on the independent mind. caller: good morning. host: make sure you turn down your television or radio so they don't feed back. go ahead. caller: i was very disappointed with president bush, shifted his focus from afghanistan to iraq, going after the oil instead of taking care of national security. but i was wondering, do you think we have the infrastructure in place -- the people to retrain already and are we training people to get them in their so that we can provide a livelihood? guest: i think given enough time, we do do that. but the real question is, have

we missed the golden moment? we went income 84% of the afghans welcome us. we had all kinda cornered and we let them get away. we promised a marshall plan and we did not deliver on it so we began to lose trust of the people. we've got to get that back. if we don't get that back we are not going to be able to succeed and hopefully they can see the direction we are moving. but they need a result. host: one more question on line -- 1 twitter -- how does the u.s. role in afghanistan further american progress? guest: i think it ferber's american progress because this is basically how al qaeda central has been located, and if you want to protect ourselves and allies from additional attacks by this group, this is the place you got to get under control. if it is not a haven, it will be difficult for them to operate

the way they did. you don't want afghanistan to destabilize the region because one of the things, if they destabilize pakistan, that is a country that has nuclear weapons so the last thing you want is groups lik way a that perhaps we

should have done before katrina excess packaging it was such an unimaginable event that it did not occur to anyone in. i believe and what to think of such a gargantuan matter hinn, but today's hearing will address a very important new and unresolved questions. that hurricane could she never raised for our country for the first time. what is a catastrophic disaster? note that word -- catastrophic disaster. think of as a new invention now, we have used that word before. what is the role of the federal government before, during and after these events? is additional authority needed in to address response and recovery from these events? which cannot sit by and merely

hope that outsize and disasters such as hurricane katrina and 9/11 will never occur again. our obligation to the public requires investigation by the subcommittee to prepare us for the possibility of these contingencies. wrecking katrina make landfall august 29th 2005 and prove to be the most costly natural disaster in american history. on congress and particularly the subcommittee have spent the nearly four years since katrina looking at the action of the federal current as well as state and local governments, voluntary agencies as citizens themselves from response to recovery. which continues to this day. on the golf course -- on the gulf coast. today's hearing focuses on next that the. of what it did we learn from hurricane katrina as well as

other disasters in the united states and the air around the world practice concerning what should be done to respond to a catastrophic disasters and to facilitate recovery most important, what steps should all concerned be taking out cracksman into prepare for in mitigate the risks the lives and property from these events? the robert t. stafford and disaster relief and emergency assistance act where stafford act which was signed into law november 23rd, 1988 but is not clear and that congress contemplated gargantuan disasters with recovering proceeding for years. they -- authorized by our committee is the federal government's primary authority for addressing major disasters from all hazards and dividends and for the most part of this

authority has proven sufficient to address all types of disasters and emergencies, but it is an open question whether the stafford act is sufficient when measured against the background hurricane katrina now provides. the stafford and denominations rich as a management system are grounded in our federal system of government that recognizes how that the primary responsibility to address the sasser's an emergency use resides with states and communities, not the federal government. as a result, the assistance provided after a disaster is as the stafford act provides to and i am quoting here, supplement, supplemented their efforts and a valuable resources of states, local governments and disaster relief organizations and quote.

unwilling, however, it is already clear that one characteristic that distinguishes catastrophic disasters in from other disasters is that the magnitude of a huge disaster who often has national impacts, national impacts, impact beyond the seat of the disaster. homes rather than of expletive to a particular state or community. we must therefore reevaluated the role of the federal government as well as the fema's authorities, policies and regulations that presume federal assistance is always supplemental. regardless of the disaster. the safra and to existing authority and systems where the russians use and disasters that the country will face is are so

detailed and time proven that this landmark statute provides necessary base for additions or revisions if needed to however defined it is treated teaches that capistrano disasters are complex, unusually large and a fax, hard to predict and expensive. moreover there are distinguishable because had they require months rather than days or weeks were coming months in the and probably years and will rather than days or weeks to move from a response to recovery inevitably there for the subcommittee cannot avoid the question of whether new extraordinary authority should be given to the presidents of the united states in advance and whether congress should provide an wamp for the recovery from catastrophic disasters that is

specific and targeted to the size of these unusually large and pervasive events. the subcommittee looks for to hearing the testimony of today's witnesses to help us address how we can prepare for these catastrophic events. we particularly welcome if administrator craig fugate has taken office and is testifying before this committee for the first time. i am pleased to ask, ranking member mr. dsos balart if he has any opening remarks. >> thank you read much madam chairman and actually i want to thank you for holding this important hearing. obviously for the witnesses as always for their contributions and their expert testimony, is good to see usurp. i also want to welcome a madam chair administrator administrator fugate in his first hearing before this committee in his new position

now. hill lien he has been doing this kind of thing before at a different level and it's going to, i excited he is a way that the federal level. after hurricane katrina, congressman made it clear we needed a fema administrator who knows what he is doing and has authority to get the job done and the precedents i think found the best person in the country. with a person who knows what he is doing and who has unfortunately a lot of experience dealing with the large and small in emergencies and again i have tremendous confidence in it administrator fugate and i really looking for to continuing to work with him and hopefully he will not be too busy, that's something we are hoping for. i also need to a balanced the tremendous work that congressman balckout has done to speed the recovery finding in louisiana. we still have issues after the storm. he has held several rounds tables with fema acid and local officials and members of congress. i've been involved in some of

them and frankly he has held to free up hundreds of millions of dollars for those stricken by katrina here he has also been working closely with the experts such as the witness today as mccarthy of the congressional research service on possible changes and recommendations to the stafford act. i believe money of the options will be presented to that committee for informing the stafford act and a direct result of congressman average spent and i thank him for his aggressive involvement with this committee and a semper and issues. now, obviously as the chairman said pitching it was a horrible huge devastating hurricane. unfortunately as we know it is very unlikely that will be the largest on the hits us where the most large as catastrophe and damaging one that hits our country, category five hurricane in south florida could come at any moment were unwilling and

18.0 earthquake in california or pandemic food and we keep hearing about that right now are all those possibilities that could hit us at the time so what disasters obviously got large, would stress to the entire emergency management system but i want to focus on a few import areas i think are the most concern there needs to be obviously a clear federal chain of command. week and that is essential head during a catastrophic disaster and they can be a critical point of failure and as we saw during katrina. i have mentioned this before and i mentioned earlier as well, congress changed the law to assure the nation has a qualified, qualified as fema administrator who does what he is doing who could coordinate the federal response on behalf of the president. now unfortunately the president has yet to to obtain the presidential directive on incident management which is

below age as nga and to reflect this change in dhs has built a duplicative incident management organization outside of fema. and congress continuously tries to defund the and i will do get into that later so as i recall the entire reason fema has to be within dhs when so that if we could use fema to manage the response dhs and the government could use fema to manage the response to a terrorist attack. and yet for the last three years dhs has built a parallel incident command structure that bypasses fema. again, it makes no sense. as a result, it is frankly not clear to me or to some of the witnesses of our witnesses who will be in charge, those who will be in charge and to coordinate the federal response if the secretary decides to appoint a principal federal

officers known as a plo during the disaster. who would be in charge? fema or this outside the plo? this confusion is a recipe for failure and also another thing madam chair the department needs to follow the law and you even have written letters to the president on this. another critical issue i hope we can address is the role of the department of defense. during a mega disaster department of defense forces will be needed quickly in and i understand there is an effort to thwart, first obviously what is the effort of dod, they need to be quickly and we saw how well how they responded during katrina. and i have to be well coordinated with fema and a half to be a supporting role to the states, this is when they run out of resources is when you need dod to come in and if it is a big disaster to come in big

red anderson that debarment is recommending a change when responding to disaster and have heard that the change and potential change has caused frantic considerable concern among a number of governors and i have to admit that i share many of the governors' concerns. so i hope we can talk about that. another critical failure something the chairman has brought up many times and never had a hearing in south florida and when you brought that up to do with the housing issue. what to do with the 500,000 or so over a million families force out of their homes by one of these horrible catastrophic disasters. despite the release of national disaster housing strategy, there is still no clear solution to addressing the housing issue at that scale. i do need to commend it fema forum i read that there are looking at other options outside the box even looking at the possibility of some cases using homes and that may be under

foreclosure so i commend fema for thinking outside the box but again we need to make sure that we have a strategy before the big storm or the big advance may come. mitigation and preparation are issues that must be examined and clearly improved and earlier this year i introduced them to visit a public alert and warning system modernization act along with chairwoman norton and rep. guthrie and graves of the subcommittee. i also introduce a safe building code and both of these bills and are intended to prepare for a big storm and to mitigate against disasters. in providing incentives for states to deny to building codes is friendly and very attentive common-sense way to minimize damage and loss of life that a catastrophic disaster could entail and we've seen that it does work. in developing into integrated public alert warning system is critical to saving lives.

now, in with countless methods of communication available today twitter in facebook, e-mail etc. we are still using in@@@@rr)"rrr for those of us who live in seis pros to disasters, thank you. >> thank you very much, you

raise some of the questions that have been before us. mr. kaul, and you have any opening statement? >> thank you madam chair, first of all i would like to on behalf of my constituents think the chairman and ranking member for holding this important hearing today and for their sustained when attention to how the recovery of the board parishes and i also appreciate their recognizing and a significant challenges to recovery presented by certain aspects of the stafford act and what we are talking about the stafford act one of the questions that we are is whether we should freeze and the act in a separate incidents level and for a catastrophic events and to help us clarify what these terms may imply an ally to tell you what katrina, many of the political institutions like charity hospital and basically the

entire health care infrastructures in the heart of the early as these have never reopened and other basic services like police and fire and rescue, libraries and schools were wiped away by the flood waters and are simply today path shells for buildings. in the immediate area around orleans 80 percent of the buildings and 40% of a them were damaged in some way of. who in my mind hearing in the mind of my constituents was pitching in to the gulf coast and to orleans and generous and parishes was without doubt to a catastrophe after katrina whom would i spend a significant amount of time talking to my constituents and also to federal officials with administrator administrator fugate, mr. mccarthy about what changes need to remain to this effort act, we are taking a comprehensive free look at the saturn aga and the recollection

supported and i was secure supports madam chair mr. ranking member in these efforts. this navidad is currently setup to provide recovery dollars on a project by project basis. her for the gulf coast dates that were hit by hurricane katrina and rita, this is not optimal due to the extent of distractions. that i that we're nearly four years for these events and the states and fema are still arguing over doorknobs of whether a building that was flooded that is and falling down was more or less than 50 percent damage to demonstrates this. link in catastrophic cormack disasters the states and localities maintain the flexibility to rethink and replant the recovery and have other mitigation plan. they need to have a flexibility to decide whether rebuilding in the pre disaster for a. is the best solution for the committee's long term.

what are some of the fixes that i hope you look at? in regards to this stafford act? us -- legislative regrading a level for catastrophes or mega disasters are rich in holistic look at the community's needs to be taken, this is the feasibility of lump-sum settlements and mega disasters like that which was then decided to respond to the disaster of september 11th. shifting more responsibilities to end their by incentivizing states and localities to prepare better for disaster is so, for example building codes to another recovery dollars ultimately provided by the federal government, this is something that the ranking member has been working on the legislation and i am proud to support this. will revise and the management structure and other agencies to

shift decisionmaking from the upper level management where bottlenecks occurred to the staff that is on the ground and meeting with local governments representatives on a daily basis. in the course of my conversations and with the tough part is, it has become abundantly clear to me that fema employees have been almost indoctrinated to believe that they are handcuffed by the sack and therefore i can't come up with out of the box solutions. when you have a major disasters like hurricane katrina we made a free thinking, but fema employees are allowing themselves to be admired in red tape causing them to retreat from a difficult questions and prieta solutions by hiding behind in the stafford act and what it does is not allowed. um my reading of the stafford act and is that there is

incredibly flexible piece of legislation that was always in this is to provide a framework, the real problem is for decades fema has been putting what regulations on top of each other which is what is hampering fema employees. fema has restricted its up with an consistent recollection of the summer so that they can't be a partner in communities recovery which is what they ought to be part of what i am hopeful that secretary of pilots, in administrator administrator fugate will have the same sort of a sudden awakening about the restrictions to fema and that they will fundamentally reworked the recollections tampering performance. however, i want to make it clear that if we don't see real progress in freeing of the creativity and private thinking of employees we will draft legislation that requires you to do some. with that i'm looking for into your testimony in the i hope and

to work with you further in the future to look and an stafford act and how we can improve the cooperation of fema with the state and local employees. thank you very much, madam chair. >> with thank you. we are very pleased them to welcome our colleague, was of iowa who has a remark and testimony and his own him and, please, receive them at this time. >> well, i went to think chairman norman, ranking member, members of the subcommittee for giving me the opportunity to testify today. i'm not the experts, i am just a congressman from the second district of iowa an area where we have essentially our own katrina in june of 2008 and is really this was wonderful for me and at the outset here to listen to my colleagues. and i really appreciate what you have to say because well in new orleans is that the soda and of

the line if you will as far as mississippi river is concerned, and we're way of north there are a lot of things when what i think we have in common in terms of our thoughts about how to do this differently and i do what two say at the outset i think fema did a good job in iowa. and has done a good job but there are a lot of things that obviously can be changed so i'm looking for to working with you in the future as to how we can change things and i want to say at the outset that i said three out with this first happened in iowa in june of 2008 there is nothing partisan about catastrophes. there doesn't matter whether republican or democrat, you'll get hit by a catastrophe in working together i think in a bipartisan way is really an absolutely critical and so i am looking for to in this as well. are flooding in iowa was to a 500 year flood, 85 of the 99 counties were presidentially declared disaster areas and represented 85% of the entire

state. to some of the hardest-hit areas in my district cedar rapids, iowa city, all built, carl bildt, estimated that cedar rapids alone has nearly $5.6 billion in recovery knees, one city of 120,000 in iowa, $5.6 billion in recovery means. with this in mind and consider that about 3 billion has been allocated to the entire state of disaster recovery which includes a large amount of states funds even though damage statewide was estimated at about $10 billion. when considering what constitutes a catastrophic disaster one indicator was maybe useful to consider it would be the damage relative to income is your state budgets in this city by what had receipts for f509 of $6.9 billion. compared to the estimated 10 billion is a wide damage. in the city of cedar rapids have a budget for at y09 of nearly

380 million in keep that in mind and think about the high price $6 billion in needs. that further bring the magnitude of this disaster in perspective and calculating as with a damaged cruise be that public assistance program at the i was a range as the fifth largest disaster in u.s. history. and if you take away nothing from my testimony, will be size of a large to lob significance of a widespread attitude of the disaster i will have accomplished something here is my job to keep this in the forefront of your minds and the american people. fema was not our only source of assistance. many federal programs and agencies or mobilize and utilized during and after our disaster. fema agreed to lower the cost share to 10% from our public assistance categories and waive the cost share completely for others because we have to get waivers and exchanges and changes to the current law we have to work to put in place and this was one example.

an additional application for the individual assistance disaster of assistance and public assistance were extended and numerous other waivers were granted to federal departments or agencies. i also work with my colleagues in the last congress to pass a supplemental disaster relief appropriations bills and the largest of these allocated to i was $800 million comes from the committee to develop a block grant from hud. it's my understanding that the right to use of the funds after hurricane katrina continues to be an issue as well and as to was made of housing. a with the funds are not traditionally used as you all know for disaster relief. and therefore they're not ideally suited to be flexible and that commendable and now this is something i heard from you folks, then the printable this if you will to lead to immediate post disaster recovery needs of cities and communities. how secretary dog said it during a visit that the state of iowa

in cedar rapids are models for officially utilizing the funds for disaster recovery. i am proud of that decision by to have to wonder why at this point the federal government is still looking for models of efficiency. i know it has of an easy journey from my district and the journey is far from over but as city rapids and i want to provide examples of best practices for the future, then i look for to working with secretary john evans to all of you on this committee to those who are about to testify to mr. huang administrator fugate and so we can deal more offensively and more officially with these issues when they arrive in a catastrophic disaster is. and perhaps i think maybe we should be and with a simple assumption, that we are going to be faced with catastrophes in the future. of we have to simply accept that fact. i know that in the past we said that we knew that but i think all of us who have been through

these catastrophes or other it in france we really believe there are going to happen again because we need to be better prepared and said thank you very much for allowing me to testify and i appreciate this opportunity and will turn it over to the experts and i'm looking for to hearing what they have to say reading their testimony. no continuing to work with our relevance administrators at the federal levels of thank you reminds her that opportunity to testify today. >> thank you, you have introduce a new element, one that i am not sure is a unit is really very much worth looking at, the costs of of events versus one budget although that is the annual budget of the state so that is a matter we should look into as another element in savings has been considered before. other any questions? >> thank you come in a brief comment, it's interesting you say that, those of us who have

gone through it become aware of its, of those catastrophes and you are right about making sure that we continue to remind people that this is going to happen and it's not wise to happen only in one part of the country but anywhere at a time. your observation about the incidents on nonpartisan is a shrewd as well as i'm proud in particular of this committee the response of congress in particular this committee has also been non-partisan but it is important to always remember in places like florida where is been a fierce sense hit by the big one into which was not as big as what we thought. it was huge but a worse one could come. you get complacent so it is important to keep reminding us to not do that so i thank you for bring that up again. thank you, sir. >> thank you very much, mr. kyle who. >> if that was a standard it would one be of the budget of the state of louisiana for

decades fred. and that maybe what in quote we intend to end the pain because h#aám)@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ãg administrator nine davis live away from administrator administrator fugate who, of course, one is in the new administrator of the federal emergency management agency itself for his first appearance before a subcommittee. well, administrator fugate and. >> when thank you hajj madam chair, a ranking member and other members of the committee. it's an honor to be here before your committee and talking about catastrophic disasters. so what is a catastrophic disaster, by one definition to use? the framework we define as a natural man many incidents

including terrorism and the results sex or near levels of mass casualties, damage or disruption of severely of i to population infrastructure m -- zero economy and national morale of government functions. fifteen minutes town of 100,000 and have a catastrophic event in may have been catastrophic to the overall system so i often think we talked cast of a particularly at level of fema, looking at the events that have national impacts forces of those that may be very localized that we can still respond with our normal process and resources to get in there quickly. solarize talk about catastrophic we're talking about those events that are magnitude is take on significance of impacting our national ability to respond with, recover and remove on from those. in particular i was interested in a conversation about stafford act in the opening statements and questions as to that stafford act, one is extremely flexible document and quite

capable of doing anything as yet one else to need to do to make it more responsive. madam chair, and to lay out how i'm approaching this in my confirmation process and the two months i've been there. i believe i'm taking in three tiered approach because until i have guidance from congress on which way you are wanting to receive the most immediate thing we can do is look at our policy internally. and then just aphorist. that is our first up, i have directed the two look at our guidance to adjust the issues that are being brought up on a are we doing that, limiting what we are able to do in the disasters. the second use of looking at the roles, the federal register receipt of our 44 which governs the rulemaking of the rules we have administered in a separate act and then look at this effort and as a whole but i think

interfirst have to really look at what we have is bit one make sure it is not for scribing or preventing from using the tools and the stafford act to s. wayne we talked about catastrophic and think again we oftentimes look in the past and i am looking into the future and looking as some of the scenarios we still faces a nation, not only those that occurred but the other types of events we could face, when california earthquake to a major hurricane and the gulf coast and florida hurricane that strikes hawaii and looking and developing plans a base around what the impacts are. i then one of the challenges we had oftentimes will plan to our capabilities and hope that disaster is not any bigger beer foam was and what i have found in history is if you don't plan for the potential impacts and look at how your system is applied one who with a false sense religion you are able to

manage the evidence at the point of failure to have a catastrophic failure and not just a system that need to expand. i believe in partnerships one of the things i want to make clear is and we talk about disaster response particularly with catastrophic and fema is not a team, fema is part of the team under the federal system. we have the leverage and work as partners with our local states, federal agencies, private sector, volunteer, community-based and the public to build a team that can respond to these very large scale events, some of which may reach the point i national level and the catastrophic. so to summarize what stafford act has a lot of tools in it but we must first in a look at our policy guidance which we are doing to determine what we can do within the scope of it stafford act to address the concerns raised in previous disasters and the ones facing.

building 18 based upon whom the consequences we are facing in some of these events and building that capability by leveraging all of the resources of the country, not just looking and fema. and third and finally, the understanding in catastrophic disasters we must not continue to look at the public as a liability but look at them as a resource that we incorporated into our planning to oftentimes i run into challenges where we have in many cases road plans for what i, the easy part of population and able-bodied adults to understand and have and that means to take care of themselves in the impact of a disaster. that is not the communities we live in. r committee's chairman of children, the above frail elderly and made up of people with disabilities in our tendency is to look of those folks after we wrote the basic plan to address the challenges. i think if you're going to be successful in any disaster

including catastrophic you have to design plans that address the needs of the committee not just those posts that are easy to help. with that, madam chair, i will conclude my remarks and malcolm questions. >> thank you very much administrator fugate. when would you describe for us you're own background and an emergency management, john a. began and how you rose to your present position? a lot. >> i started out in 1987 as a lead tenant with a al-awja county fire rescue determine, was to permit prayer frederick, i was asked to come in and work on the counties disaster plans in the -- >> where was this located? >> gainesville, florida. i began working in 1987 that february a career that took me for the next 10 years working at the county level as the bridges

to manager. i had several large scale chemical incidents that we dealt with as well as numerous other storms, floods in advance but fortunately with tarkanian to hitting the candy was not directly impacted although we hosted evacuees from south florida. in 1997i was offered the opportunity to go to state and to serve as the bureau chief for premise response, i joined the team of late governor chiles and again looking at the lessons of hurricane andrew and what happens to address the concerns the say had i join asean that was working hard with the florida legislature to continue building and improve upon that. we found out in 1990 how much we were able to foreign and that have over 200 days of your activity well fires, floods and hurricane george. the situation was such it was the first time on the east coast with accurate is an entire county during wild fires because of the threats.

2001 was as i go there bush to serve as the director of emergency management and that october serving in that capacity the 2004 hurricane season where we have for land falling hurricanes, between 2004 and 2005 we had with a total of eight hurricanes hit the state of florida. five of which are major hurricanes and in addition to that immediate aftermath of hurricane katrina at the request of state of mississippi, we provided emergency management the sissons compact and ends up with 7,000 responders and spending $80 million in funds and running everything from search and rescue teams and communications and just about anything else that we could provide it to those local governments at the request of the governor. we also the state said resources to the state of louisiana but we ended that because of the proximity of the road systems and the fact we lost the rich

focus of mississippi to brad the assistance. when governor bush stepped down and governor chris was elected, we appointed one month into his administration had intended to operate with 21 fatalities this summer where and to this spring and was asked by the presidents serving his administration and confirmed in may and have been serving as fema administrator for the last two months. >> he had to lay out the history because it is very important to the subcommittee. id has been the view of the subcommittee with that particular lane who are unforeseen disaster someone but even for the run-of-the-mill disaster at the federal level the way to respect what your testimony in the case with my opening testimony, my own opening statement says about responsibility as someone who has been there and done that and

who has very deep and wide experience emergency management, we are pleased to lay that on the record because the president has appointed somebody who has what appears to be with experience in democratic and republican administrations, that is important for us and the record to show because i'm going to ask you a question about this agency. it has been a thorn in the subcommittee cited and congress itself, it seemed to fall apart after hurricane katrina. nobody expected somehow people to rush in there like a knight in shining armor and rescue louisiana, but it did seem to know which side was up, lobs

having saved by the coast guard and people from various states such as your own. who and the result was now pending legislation that would even take fema out of the department of homeland security so compromised and one of the first things i'd like you to tell this committee bowater is about the independence of the agency within the department of the homeland security. when while fema was a nimble agency before that got on the ground quickly, that somehow would it became admired as a

superstructure of the department of homeland security and that's why all of the decisions had to go from hawaii the administrator bruce simon you paygo bureaucracy that we ourselves have created in setting up the department to the detriment of fema. we passed -- we laughed, we passed legislation making it clear that homeland security was not to compromise in the ability of this agency to move toward. i want some indication from you whether or not will fema it is today who as independent as anybody of would expect warm water given the fact that it is still in the department of homeland security, that goes to have the reporting dose, you are

equipped and authorized to make decisions and give as to ask several bureaucracies before the decision is made in washington are made in louisiana -- any to know what the chain of command is in your own agency before we get down to the states having to then ask you something. how independence is this agency within the bureaucracy today? >> madam chair, i refer to the secretary, the secretary reports to the president. >> there are no officials between you and the secretary? .. in

when we put fema in the department of homeland security bigot can you make most of the decisions you have to make on your own or do you have to say this is what i want to do, madam secretary, do i have your sign off? >> there are some things because of procurement issues were others assigned to secretary but by and large -- >> with this being a disaster procurement matters in a disaster, would you then -- would you have sign-off, procurement sign off of matters of a disaster within our budgetary authority?

>> madam chairman, yes. >> thank you, sir. we understood that the bureaucracy has declared some of your actions. that is not the case? >> madame chair, secretary l ú what is the operations coordinations -- [inaudible]

these names. [laughter] the average person really lose this comprehension once we get into the oc -- what is the office of coordination, when was it created, by whom and what is its function? >> i defer back to homeland security. that was created and has been a standing element prior to me joining dhs and fema. we have the national response coordination senter record night with nasa operations center, other components within dhs cord need with operations center which gives the secretary visibility on a variety of issues including things such as border matters, coastal issues, other activities that occur within the department under her perfume as other components. >> now, yes dhs has created this office of coordination at dhs.

now, as we look at statutory role of fema, we see conflicts with the role and many of the statutory plan mandated functions of fema itself. and the agency appears to be relying on -- and this really does get the commission upset. sorry, the committee upset. because it appears to be relying on these outdated administrative documents. here's some more initials for everybody. hspd-5. now, this is exactly what we had in mind when we passed the

katrina act and overruled these administrative documents. can you explain therefore in light of the post-katrina act why hspd-5 is still an outstanding administrative document and the role of the so-called office of operations coordination can prepare for in responding to disasters. does this have a role and function and why in the world are you relaunching or does the agency appeared to be relying on administrative documents that have been overruled, overruled by statute? >> as part of the executive branch the prerogative and executive orders, and looking at those issued in previous administrations carried forward in this administration many of these are still under review.

as to the -- with the post-katrina emergency management for mad speaks to and what may be potentially in conflict with hspd-5 or homeland security recognition number 55 aware of these issues but have been more focused on our role and responsibilities in administering our part of the program. >> i am pleased to learn these matters are under review because you don't want to get congress twice revisiting, then you get us really mad and lose authority because we have the same problem with principal, federal officer. in fact, we have real problems with that one because we did revisit that one apart from the post-katrina act. we revisited it more than once because of what we had witnessed on the ground we had tight red

tape after katrina. now the so-called principle federal officer, everybody who thinks the substance matter will have to pardon me while i get through these bureaucratic names that they paced on to functions where sometimes a function disappears or is in conflict with the statutory mandate. but here goes. it is called by dhs the principal federal officer, pfo, conflicts directly with the statutory created federal coordinating officer so that something happens on the ground, no matter who comes, whoever is in charge stands up. this is a war when there is a natural disaster just like there is a war when there is in fact war. it got to know who is in charge.

that is one thing katrina taught us to clean up. these duplicative functions were cited as a primary cause of the field response of the hurricane katrina. that's why we have some exasperation concerning this officer. now, i need to ask you whether dhs in fact seeks the repeal of the statutory mandate put in place to avoid duplication, and whether the agency is continuing to rely on administrative documents that have been overruled by statutes, and you have said that is under review and for that matter the national response framework to attempt to regard these or disregard these statutory provisions. we need to know now because if

we need further clarification when an agency simply is in contempt what we revisit again and we need to know what about these p.f.o. and f.c.o. -- by the way, we are joined in this inquiry by the other committee of which i served, the committee on homeland security, which has the same problem, cosigned with us on letters and co-sponsored with us, the statutory repeal. so, could i have your answer? >> madam chair, i will have to defer some of that to the department, but as far as the f.c.o. goes it is clear to me the way the statute is written that the f.c.o. under the stafford act either emergency or major residential -- >> say that again please. >> it is my interpretation of

the stafford act post-katrina emergency management form that clearly states when the president declares an emergency or mazar to become major declaration the federal coordinating officer has the authority to execute the stafford act. >> who has the authority, the federal coordinating officer? >> yes, ma'am. >> -- federal officer, highly paid official doing on the ground, and how am i to know if i come from out of state who is in charge? >> under the stafford act declaration that will be the federal coordinating officer authorized by the president to support the federal response on behalf of the request of that governor. >> say that again. i'm sorry. >> the federal court needing officer on behalf of the president is authorized under the stafford act to coordinate -- >> how do you make this distinction to state officials, to ordinary citizens on the ground, and why does the -- if

in fact the president of the united states has confidence in the federal coordinating officer, why would it be necessary to pay somebody else? to be on the ground the to report to the department of homeland security? >> madam chair, i will defer back to the agency. my focus is, again, i authorities with the federal coordinating officer is appointed by the president when there is a declaration. that is clear that they have the authority on behalf of president record made federal response as well as administer the stafford act. >> after the koln chris patches a statute, search? >> i'm not disputing that. i am stating under my purview i appoint or make the recommendations of the who the president will appoint as a federal court in an unlawful search under the stafford act be read the principal federal official program is not something that fema -- is not

something we administrate. >> well, let me indicate that the appropriations committee supports our view, particularly -- it would support it many times over now that we don't have money to spend on another top lawyer, beside the top layer that's already there. we've never had a satisfactory answer to why there should be to people on the ground particularly after hurricane katrina and that gave the disaster and we don't intend to tolerate any longer, and if we find that such an officer is funded we will ask the appropriation committee to be funded, and we would expect this administration to abide by the mandate of congress. i'm going to go to mr. kyl and ask if he has any questions before i proceed further. >> thank you. mr. fugate, i appreciate in your testimony that you mentioned team work, that fema is a 18 but part of a team. i've noticed that after katrina

there was a lack of teamwork among the different federal agencies. i am not sure what kind of steps you have initiated in order to better coordinate between your office and the other federal offices and agencies. >> rett now, congressman, my greatest challenge is the next disaster working closely with several partners such as department of defense, north koln, working with national guard bureau, working with other elements. but i think some of the other parts of the team work hopefully we are starting to see some daylight in the state of louisiana. we've worked with the state. secretary napolitano has obviously been there. predecessor nancy ward made some significant personnel changes to begin moving forward, to begin that process that often times

was seen as state and federal and local government as not being able to move forward. we've been working in our part to get projects committed to move the money and begin the rebuilding of the project that hadn't been in dispute. we've been working aggressively to address those challenges. but i think part of the discussion i have heard that as a state i was very much aware of it is often times in a large scale disaster, catastrophic disaster there are other programs beside the stafford act that can be brought to bear. it works best when it's done looking at what the stafford act can do and other programs such as community block development dollars to address issues. when you look back and say what was with her can katrina in many cases we didn't play good job of

looking at all the other federal programs matching those with the needs of the community and oftentimes looking at only one or two programs and not really having the ability to reach out across the federal family of programs that could meet those challenges or supports the needs of those communities. i will give you an example of children. we look at the plans and oftentimes right plants and forget the children can be 20% more than the population but if you look at children negative use there's not much of the stafford act other than talking about facilities as some things that get to that and i am not sure we are the experts on that. there are other federal programs that have funds that go to local communities to support daycare and other issues. we should be looking how we partner with these sources and build that team so that in a disaster fema is not having to recreate a system that already exists. we are part of a team that can leverage that and provide assistance and work with those federal agencies that do this every day in the community so that we can meet the needs and that is what i think as far as building a team, going back and creating a new program if we already have one but making sure we are leveraging those programs

that fema has with programs that exist every day and when disaster strikes making sure of the federal side we are working on a team to address the astrologist. >> one of the biggest problems i saw after katrina is the lack of time line and lack of coordination between the different agencies. let's take the issue of health care for example. is one issue simply to rebuild the hospitals and clinics that it is another issue to basically provide an area with housing the, economic development, all of those issues come into play. how do you see the fema for instance as a partnership in that recovery process, and is

there -- should there be a point agency that possibly what have the power in order to coordinate and provide a time line for the different federal agencies to see who is responsible@@@@@@@ @ partner. with that long term recovery mission resides within fema or other federal agency i think we all have to look at as you pointed out some of the things that have to occur to say we can

afford is addressing housing. if you look a specific's housing programs their sheltered programs. if we don't have long-term affordable housing solution at the end of 18 to 24 months we are keeping people and what should have been made shorter timeframe sheltering operations that we end up now three, four, five years later. we have got about 2400 folks in temporary housing units. these are sheltered programs that should have had an outcome that said at the end we had an affordable housing on board to make that transition of the sheltering program and when it didn't occur we were still keeping people in what should have been a much shorter time frame but we didn't have that follow one. that i think is where we have to do a better job both at the state federal families describing the outcome and then going back on the federal side and identify who has already bought existing authority capabilities and oftentimes we look at some the mechanisms as

not necessarily just funding the stafford act but looking at the other federal programs that would make more sense to provide the capability to than in the disaster response they have the programs that could actually deal with longer-term solutions versus many of fema's progress based upon a short-term response like activity or rebuilding activities based on damages and directors or storm. >> i have one last question to ask, madam share, if you don't mind. mr. fugate, after speaking to different people more or less, and we come to the agreement that the stafford act does not prevent fema from reaching a lump sum settlement to speed up the recovery process. i know that recent law allows for fema to initiate a process but then the arbitration process in and of itself is a project by

project arbitration which at the same time isn't at least in my view speed up and allow the state and local municipalities with flexibility to coordinate the recovery process. are you in the process of looking at ways that we could try to settle, allow states or a city agency to settle with fema in a lump sum amount and then from there to allow the state and local governments the flexibility to have them initiate a recovery plan as they would see fit for their own communities? >> there's two options. one is to design a program that looks like block grants. we do an estimate, write a check and we are done. the problem is oftentimes

disasters are so complex we don't know enough initially and oftentimes keep going back. i think a better option let's take a school system, the jefferson school system and instead of writing each building as a project what if we wrote the district as a project for the campus as a project and gave him more flexibility within those structures? i think the tendency to look at every item, every building has a separate project worksheet is not something that necessarily lends itself to the flexibility door asking for our staff has to go back and look at is do we have the tools, can we with the stafford act to things that allow us to write projects based upon a function not necessarily each piece of that function. an example you raised was police station fire stations. we treated those as individual component but what if we step back and say let's look at the fire department for the city of new orleans as it is a project. to we have the ability to step

back and not recreate station by station because that may not be the need given the change in population within the overall framework of what was impacted, what is eligible and how do we move forward. so we are asking the questions what is the best way to approach that and then look at if we cannot get there with our authorities we have under the stafford or see a far that would warrant discussions back to look at the concourse would like to provide additional guidance in stafford. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. cao. with a new administration i think it is fair to ask our view, mr. fugate, in light of the of broad sight criticisms of

fema center can katrina and recognizing statutory changes and improvements in the agency board and a wholesale overhaul of the agency be in order at this time to assure that it is a nimble functioning agency? >> madam chairman that is definitely the part of the contras. my caution would be -- >> i'm talking about administrative overhaul. not anything the statute would say. i'm talking about the kind of things, chris expected to happen afterwards based on the administrative arm it had in place or do you think that administrative harm is now functioning to the level that is required and does not need to have a look at its functions in

every department and aspect of the new administration. no change we can believe in? >> madame chair that is what we are doing. i've been here two months and able to bring a lot of folks back in that bring in state and local experience and i will be looking forward to my deputy coming on board. the senate will confirm the recommendation of the president that will have a person with city experience. we have people that have worked in state government and we are building our leadership ranks of donner people that have done this had been in the field and have been customers of fema. the other thing is if you have ever seen our chart is far past any reasonable control and doesn't resemble what we do. and i've always believed firmly -- >> what does it resemble -- >> it looks like a spider. everybody reports to the boss and nobody seems to be able to figure out what we do. if you look at the chart i doubt anybody could understand what fema does behind firm believer

that form should follow function. we should be organized by what we do and these are the steps we are currently going through as we build that team to look at how we've been doing things and putting emphasis on outcomes, not process. the other thing we've instituted is there is a tendency to think that you are going to know when the next disaster is going to be which we know is it true and i believe the best way to prove my point and to demonstrate our competencies' is no notice exercises that take us to the point of failure and to assure ourselves we are learning the lessons of previous disasters and applying them to both of those threats we are familiar with and threats many people have never thought about. i just recently left the space weather prediction center in boulder colorado that deals with geomagnetic storms and looking at the potential impact of a major geomagnetic storm across the infrastructure. these are natural hazards that nobody has addressed the because more trouble than people

realize. so this is approach based on -- >> what is the approach again, what are you calling them, please? >> we have within the national weather service an office in boulder, colorado that does nothing but mom to the sun for solar flares and geomagnetic radiation. in certain events, those storms can be so powerful as the impact, which of the part of the globe is facing the sun, power outages across most of the united states simultaneously. >> anything example of? >> there have been storms so powerful in the northern tears in the country including canada there have been power outages with the damage to infrastructure. there is a historical record even to 1859 that it occurred today would result in about 90% black out of the power system of a better part of the globe is facing the sun when it strikes.

>> how about the ice storms we had in the midwest just this past winter? is that a smaller version of when you're talking about? >> no, ma'am, ice storms are a feature of the atmosphere that is probably better understood. the weather that occurs or what they refer to as whether the sun's activity, we are currently sitting right now entering into what is called the next sola maximus of activity for solar flare, sunspots and potential for geomagnetic storms. the defense based on a or vulnerabilities with dependency upon satellite technology for communications navigation as well as dependency upon the power grid or the top of hazards that we have to expose to the team through exercises and training because, again, we know a lot about hurricanes. we don't know a lot about the next disaster that's going to strike or when it's going to strike and we are going to get there by giving exercising to learn about hazards but also to make sure the team we are building both within dhs, within

the federal family and state and local governments are faced with challenges that pushed us to the point where we are not just building a disaster response team for the things we are capable of. we are building it for the types of things that could impact this country. >> i'm going to get -- i'm going to ask ms. diaz dollar -- diaz-balart. these are climate change? >> no, these are just the sun. we become more dependable on satellites and to geomagnetic storms. >> who is studying that, sir? >> the national weather service, as part of the space with their production service has been doing this. it it's one of those programs that is up and is not well known but the impact definitely within the industry are well known particularly in the sali industry. it is something when we send our

satellites we played for. in fact, the space station is one of the prime customers because during certain radiation storms astronauts have to move into a safe location on the satellite to be protected during these storms. >> and of course we have had outages that took out great parts of mr. diaz-balart. >> thank you, madame chair. i had to step out for a phone call i had to take. thank you so much. >> you already touched on this in general terms, but i just want to make sure i understand this. if we were to get hit by the great miami hurricane again and what dhs, as far as you know, send a p.f.o. team to florida, would the p.f.o. or the f.c.o. be in charge of coordinating the federal response? again and would that p.f.o. report to you or to the secretary of dhs? >> as i understand it, there would be a federal coordinating

officer appointed and we would coordinate the response through the stafford act. as to the federal coordinating officer, if you remember back to hurricane andrew the president made a decision to appoint a cabinet official in that capacity to be the federal coordinating officer. so oftentimes it will depend upon the skill and expertise of the disaster as to whether or not would be a staff member that is routinely does it need to go out on disasters. it could be a regional administrator. i could find myself in that position but it is the president's call as to who he points his federal court needed officers, but those authorities under the act and the katrina management for that would be vested in the federal court in an officer that managed that response and service and point of contact with that governor in supporting the governor's request for assistance from the federal government. >> and i understand that. there are different circumstances that could take place. but again, and it's just -- let's just assume that it's been, you know, a storm, regular

storm, not quite as big peaden like maybe 37 you have to deal with the last couple of years in florida. [laughter] if eight p.f.o.% with a report to you or the secretary? and again will there be a p.f.o.? congress has an issue with that but -- >> congressman, under the stafford act and post-katrina act is clear there be a federal coordinating officer that would coordinate on behalf of the federal government. the official program doesn't reside within fema so i cannot speak to that. my understanding is the federal coordinating officer will be the point of contact and would be the principal implementation for stafford act and would serve on behalf of the president, to coordinate federal requests for assistance from the cover. ..@@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @