to the people, and that for integrating case management really matters. we have great case management pilot being done by a variety of federal agencies but we don't have an integrated solution to that yet. that is needed. i'm not here today to give a laundry list of what fema needs to do. this is what our country needs to do. these are what the federal agencies, nonprofits, the for-profit, state, local and tribal governments need to do. i ask you to support this approach in this important work, and i thank you for your today to make that happen. >> thank you very much out of mr. becker. just to lay some of the framework for the questions we asked, i think the general

public would be amazed to learn, you discuss it, general dunbar in your testimony, some of the others, and you may have alluded to it, that the scenario of focusing on a man-made event by engaging in a real-time exercise for the first time involving a natural disaster will occur. perhaps some of you who have been in emergency management also at the table can, mr. maxwell or others, can make us understand how, after decades of fema, decades beyond that of

natural disaster, only i take it after 9/11 did it occur to anybody that the kind of disasters we have to prepare for every year require some real-time exercise is? i mean, how was this ever -- why did this not occur before? we think this question will help us to understand whether or not any change in the statute is necessary, since we certainly don't think that fema or the federal government lacks the ability to do some kind of national level exercise, if somebody has to say you might have authority to do such an exercise, i don't know tornadoes or hazards. y. why, in your judgment, what are we, seven years after 9/11?

why is this occurring now and not before? if it's in our faces as clear as the nose on your face after 9/11, we had such an exercise, such exercises to prevent terrorist attacks, why given the scale of disaster even before katrina this was not done in your view? mr. maxwell, any of you? >> madam chair, i will take a stab at it. -part of this, the national level exercise series developed out of the top of series that was done. >> the what? >> the top official exercises that were done that involves cabinet level officials, as do the national level exercises. for a long time, the states and

regions have practiced natural disasters. and i think we were playing -- >> at the direction of the federal government or on own? >> both on their own and to some degree with the federal government as well. >> so perhaps, you know, terrorist attack is not like it would be some kind of involved in desiderata the united states, yet we have national exercises there. >> i think to some degree we are playing catch up on not having practice that terrorist event. so we went through several scenarios on that, and now we are getting back to the need to do those high level officials exercises with natural disasters as well. >> makes one question. so you agree that there wasn't a

lack of authority. >> no, ma'am. >> and i think it is, you, mr. decker, that cautions the notion, the statutory changes may be necessary. we did look at the statute. you know, congress always rights statutes. people go into you with some major, don't get picked the authorizing statute. give the agency needs to receive. you look at that stafford act, and you see a broad as mandate as you're going to find anywhere, and yet over and over again fema said we don't think we had the authority for xyz, and exasperated patience of the people on the ground. are you suggesting, mr. decker,

that changes may not be necessary to cope with a two catastrophic disaster, given what you've seen, how you saw the community you saw in fema, especially muezzin somehow relayed this authority, quote, at the expense of the authority and responsibility of state and local governments, even in what some would describe as catastrophic events. well, we're certainly not -- we're suggesting in anything that our role is supplemental. we needed to be be supplemental bill matter what you call it. but you can call it supplemental all you want to when it comes to katrina, but you heard us question. we're not about to authorize, we've seen before, so we are left with the agency trying to figure out how to resolve disputes between the two

agencies, federal and local, precisely because we will haven't put anything in the statute to say what to do. so they are sitting there with their thumb in her mouth, although under this present administer a parent making some progress, so he testified. where people on the ground are literally tearing their hair up. now, let's assume that off the table is moving out what state and local government would be doing, mr. decker. remember, administrator fugate testified that he told the administrator recently while he was on the ground and fema stop sending stuff we don't need.

>> yes, sir. , yes, sir. yet a backbone to stand up and say don't do that, you're being wasteful. but we saw fema just poor eyes under -- poor eyes on the second hurricane down there. for fighting the last war with too much ice. so assume that we are not trying to do anything at the expense of local and national government, and still regard the role of fema as supplemental, even in a catastrophic disaster, etc., you, you got to tell me what, would you or any of you believe that clarification of statutory authority is necessary, or given the broad language of the statute, should fema just hunker down and do it the statute says and let all take care of itself?

understand that you have on the line, on the ground experience of which to draw from now. >> madam chair me, i'll take a stab at that one. i think what our members were trying to stress we view the federal role as supplement and we want to make sure the locals and the state don't lose that command and control. >> how would that happen? do you really think we are just aching to throw money at states and localities? >> our concern is, and i think earlier it was discussed about -- i think if you leave it understaffed, that's why we say it is going to be changed to have to be within staff. as long as it is a stafford act event and we haven't fcl coordinating the activity and not this confusion about is a pfo or the fco then i think you find the locals are much more likely to accept that because that's a system we're familiar with and it's a system that we

trust and we believe the stafford has brought enough that it will cover a lot of those events if the transit was simply given the authority to do his or her job without worry about -- >> if there was a huge catastrophe that struck los angeles, are you confident that we would be able to categorically -- categorize it as a katrina like catastrophe? are you satisfied that would have been instantly or in kind of fashion? because we have seen anything like that in our lifetime on the west coast whatever it says it's coming. >> i think that's, to find the catastrophe will be the toughest part of this, because once catastrophic, i mean, if you take out the entire state of ohio, it's certainly catastrophic to us. other states, the impact on the rest of the country will be really -- i think whether it

defines -- >> do you think it will take out the state of ohio and not have an effect? >> i'm saying the definition of catastrophe has to with a major impact on our nation and not just one state or one region or one community. >> dr. moss? >> i just want to point out there's a legislative mandate already, and mr. mccarthy pointed this out in his testimony, but it's to create a national recovery framework. and i think it has done this with a planning framework and now with recovery framework. >> you think there needs to be a recovery from a? >> no, i think legislation already exist to require that but it hasn't been done yet. i think that's already been mandated. i think you might want to direct them to do it. >> if that happen, then what? >> i think you'd start thinking about how the recovery process that we heard, very open test me about the point of flexibility, speed, but i think the fact -- >> that would help define --

>> there was an issue raiser for the red cross, housing, social services. but understand what's involved in recovery has been one of the many flaws. >> by numbers or by what? >> about what the relevance of recovery, what it would take to have recovered. with heard a lot of discussion about housing but i think we also heard social services and other problems you have when you decide to move people more than 100 miles from their location, things get much worse in terms of what is required for recovery. i think asking fema to carry out what woodard asked them to do might be a good start. >> might be the place to start. ms. bullock? [inaudible] >> the beauty of a stafford act throughout my experience at fema was that it did give the agency the latitude to think outside the box and to do innovative programs. we can talk about innovations that we engaged in in use of the

stafford at some later point. so i don't think is necessarily a need to increase the authority and stafford. i think the problem exists in terms of what administrator fugate said, narrow interpretation of regulations on the part of the agency. and i think -- they are going to work on the. i think that something congress should look at very carefully, because people -- >> never regulations? >> and narrow interpretation of those regulations. >> you know, i want to question you on that in reticular. this is a judgment call. to you how federal officials operate. they are afraid, with good reason of the gao, they are afraid our committees. and it is, excuse me, cover your butt notions. it takes a very independent and tens upon doing his job, strong

administrator. and i have to tell you, as a member of the homeland security committee and a member of this committee, i think what we have seen in federal bureaucrats does not give me comfort to believe that regardless of the bureaucrats, the person will understand, go ahead. that's why we come even looking at the president, somebody's got a signal that it's all right so that when the fingers begin to point responsibility, we know where it lays. for example, when mr. fugate says don't send anything else here, if more was needed, he would have had to step up and say i asked the secretary not to send more resources. anytime when i did not think they were necessary, even if it

turns out he was wrong, would have to be risk being wrong sometimes. but i tell you, mr. decker, in light of existing experience, even after katrina, we passed the post-katrina act and even after the post-katrina act, the federal bureaucrat was on display every time we had a hearing. no matter what the mandate, that gives us -- makes us tremble a little bit, to say who's going to call the shots. for example, did you speak about waiver? did you say after waiver? you know, we sometimes give the president authority to do things, and then report to congress. it is you -- no, i'm sorry, dr. moss. who cites a perfect example,

incident of national significance, that somehow they had to wait for dhs. what the dhs have to do with the? nobody at dhs had any extra and. only fema did. but it's generally understood that yes, this incident of national significance had to be -- you've got to do that first. whereas before, ms. bullock, fema use all its expertise, said to the president, this is xcom and he he was out like lightning. this didn't -- we got rid of this incident of national significance. we still do not have confidence that we will see the kind of instant action, if a catastrophe, something we've never seen before, something of the kind that mr. fugate talked of him coming of the son or, yeah, ohio.

it's ohio like louisiana. they don't have the oil in ohio. somebody's got to make the call. and so my answer is, if somebody's got to make the call, does the statute have to say who should make the call? or is there playing in the statute of all you need is some backbone? what you're guaranteed to have, who should make the call. we got to make a judgment one way or the other. >> i would argue that the statute has -- provided the authority, but i think madam chair, you're exactly right. it all comes down to leadership at the top of. in the agency, and if it's going to stay in dhs, within dhs. i think we are naïve to think that if we have a major catastrophe, dhs and secretary that polydor is not going to want to play a major role in that disaster i think we're just being naïve if we don't look at it that way. therefore, the statute may be -- the stafford act has to be maybe

made stronger to clearly say that the fema administrator is in charge and maybe it's pfo. the other thing, just to go back to the recovery issue, if congress doesn't put somebody in charge of recovery, it's never going to be organized. because the agencies during the 1990s, we used to bring all the agencies together after major disaster like northridge or any disaster. we would sit them in a room and would come up with an ad hoc report that we talk about what each federal agency is going to do to support that unity in the aftermath of the disaster. we did that because the president wanted fema, james lee witt and the federal emergency management agency to take a coordinating role. that's not in statute anywhere. it's not stafford. i think that's something especially in the aftermath of a major catastrophe, somebody has to give the authority -- >> you know, cabinet level agency. fema is not a cabinet agency

level agency. i did as example of swine flu. so somebody has to say, the president said it, it is clearly they put the cdc in the front. if there were to be an attack involving biological weapons. i'm not sure who in the world would do that, but somebody would have to make that call. you know, for us to be fully around with whoever is the lead agency, and fema, you're not going to tell the secretary of the xyz what to do. year, presents problems. that's how bureaucrats be a. that's why we are looking to see how far we should go, mindful of what mr. decker said. we just don't want to be sitting here within accident occurs and nobody jumps off and acts like he knows what he's talking about.

for that matter, general dunbar really complicates matters for us, but rightly so. because you point out that if you -- if we're dealing with the national guard, that's already under the governor. but you point out that the defense department wanted authority to call up the reserves forces on some circumstances to assist. i don't know what you do, but let's go down your scenario. i guess we enact a statute, we enact a statute. because you are concerned in something parallel to our pfo or cfo, whatever these officers are. you are concerned with the establishment of dual chains of

command, creating -- been created by having the armed forces and there. but of course, we have a separation of power. and it's kind of awkward to think about putting the reserve forces under a governor, or is there president, could this occur? should it occur? how should it be done if we absolutely need a reserve because the people in the ground needs them, we might not get there because we call the national guard from all over the country. they are trained better than the reserves. but these reserves would have law-enforcement type of authority of any kind that somebody would need to do some statutorily, given existing laws, don't you think? >> yes, ma'am. i do. and i think the best place to start is probably comply with the law from fy 2009 which

mandated a council of governors to tackle this issue when congress issued their rejection of the request. they suggested we best solve this issue by forming this council of governors and working with d.o.d. to resolve it. i think that from a point of view, it could be accomplished. north, in their relations with canada and mexico and i realize were talking sovereign nations pursing states, but if we send forces to canada, it is possible that we put those forces under control of any command if canada send forces to the niceties. it's possible that they'll put those forces under tactical control of the u.s. commander. doesn't mean you have given up all authority. you'd always recall those forces and higher level of control of operational control and higher level controls continue to exist. image of the national guard.

when we deploy national guard forces to other states, which is a similar parallel, i've done this this year alone from wisconsin to both north dakota for the floods and kentucky for the ice storm. i give tactical control of those guardsmen who in fact become state assets for the states to which we deploy them. and i certainly reserve the right or the governor reserves the right to recall them if need. but i think from the unity of command, unity of effort point of view, the best thing to do, unless and until the federal government needs to take command, for the emergency being so drastic, so severe, in which case we would all get behind the president, i think the best thing is to stick with both state and federal guidance which is lowest level up. and from that perspective, we wouldn't be talking -- probably wouldn't be talking to lots of federal intrusion. probably talking about a company of engineer or a small

capability could easily fit into our joint force headquarters, in our case in wisconsin or in other states headquarters. we would then provide those forces to the state coordinating officer, which is lined up perfectly under the stafford act. >> i'm going to ask staff and i'm going to ask if any of you to look at what happens here at the inauguration. the state to safeguard to guard does not separate the powers. state to state, we lend across state lines all the time. but all forces of the united states constitutionally is under the commander in chief, and that constitutional barrier is not of interest to his. there's certain things you can't wait very easily. >> yes, ma'am. >> during the inauguration, here i may not have all the facts but since i represent the district, i was concerned that the inauguration was so big this time that there was at first the notion that reserves should be a

under some dual command. we were able, apparently it's always been under the d.c. national guard, the commander of the d.c. national guard. there was some kind of swearing in, i'm not sure what it was, but there was some kind of swearing in and everyone else who came in so that they were either sworn in at the national guard, or it -- it occurred, even though these were national guard. now, the d.c. national guard is a little different. because we're not a state. and therefore, -- but these were reserves people. they were on the ground at the inauguration. and my recollection is that

although the d.c. national guard is technically under the president, that the commander of the d.c. national guard for in these troops as something other than reserve troops for purposes here, that may suggest there's some parallel there to avoid any constitutional issue of rising. because i do think we are truly preparing for the next one. we'd better assume, assume, that you will need to go beyond the national guard. national guard is best thing to do this. no question about it, from across the country. there are a whole lot of guards. it's not that i think that we would need more troops. i agree with you, but what we may need, is specialized training.

spirit a congressional panel recently held a conference to eliminate the so-called education achievement gap and low income and minority children. and is part of the conference, scholars and civil rights activists think about the legal issues behind education inequality. house education committee member bobby scott leads this one hour 20 minute discussion. >> thank you and i want to welcome everyone to the summit

on legislative strategy to eliminate the achievement gap as congress prepares to reauthorize the elementary and secondary education act it's my pleasure to welcome you all here. for this important summit to learn how legal and legislative strategies can't eliminate the achievement gap. i think everyone here will agree that far too many of our youth are not reaching their full potential. i think i'll hear will also agree that we have a national interest in providing everyone with opportunities and resources that they need to thrive and become productive members of our society. the fact is that in order to maintain competition in today's global economy, america must have highly skilled and highly skilled and educated workforce. therefore, we need to invest in our children to ensure that they reach their full potential. physically, emotionally and academically. by doing so will invest not only in their future, but the future of our communities and nation as