versus jones. hs class of violation and that is a good starting point for discussion on drones. innovations in communication technology, such as mobile devices have exposed formerly private information to public scrutiny. information once closely guarded is now easily accessible via the internet. these may lead to new standards establishing fourth amendment violations it also raises a new challenge for prosecutors. we have many times referred to the speech of robert jackson.

.. this event to her and other appearance before us this month. it is very important that the american people know whether and how the just as department is going to use these machine. failure provides you there's

about the use is concern in us well. it may well be subject for further legislation as something the chairman and i obviously will discuss. that is why today's hearing is so to answer questions and not all of these questions i can give you because we don't have time. whether redraw the limit regarding the use of drones that government agencies, where to reach out that line? under what circumstances do we require search warrant click should police use only for surveillance? of local government allowed jones to search for traffic violations and building code violation? should the federal government use drones to see whether their fraudulent clicks were

reasonable limitations are appropriate for where and when to use drones. additionally, in examining the use, congress needs to examine the use and limits by private citizens in the air. where do we draw the line of balancing immediacy under the first amendment to be protected from invasion of privacy. another area is innovative use of drones and coming from a rural state as a chairman does, we have a lot of agriculture. drones can be used by farmers to help a farmer survey crops were quickly for early signs of disease. subform a spray crops to maintain baker, check livestock, prevent livestock and equipment. these are all timesaving and cost-saving benefits to

agriculture. no farmer would appreciate drones flying overhead playing the role of big brother and no one wants drone technology to end up in the hands of a child predator, stocker, gerrard dealer, whether criminal or terrorist. these are challenges we face to balance innovation, privacy and safety and this is an appropriate hearing to house. thank you, for your leadership. >> our first witness is ben miller has been listening to this finance a 13 year veteran in colorado and aircraft manager for the mesa county sheriff's office. in designation you would not have seen many sheriffs office

is just a decade ago. he represented the airport by prisoners association announces to the administration by developing regulations of the unmanned aircraft systems. i will put all statements in the record, but if you think to summarize, we'd appreciate it. >> good morning, chairman leahy and members of the committee. my name is benjamin miller, the aircraft manager with the sheriff's office and representative at dearborn law-enforcement association. thank you for inviting me to speak to you about the use of unmanned aircraft a small colorado community where he lives. the mesa county sheriff's office is a middle sized of a 200 people at the patrol chamber 65 deputies. this are approximately 175,000

citizens to the infiniti 3300 square-mile county. we see a wide range for petty offenses to major crime including drug trafficking and homicide. in four years with lumbar operational hours than anyone else in the country with 185 and over 40 missions. the two small battery operated aircraft systems that's a lot considering this one on the table here is a backpack size helicopter that can fly for 15 minutes and weighs two pounds. our smaller plane can fly for an hour and weighs just about eight pounds. both systems are used to carry canvas which are commercially available. in fact coming committee same camera at wal-mart. have a tissue at the brief examples of how we use this equipment. my first example occurred last may when an historic church cup higher. recruited from a camel which allowed us to show the hotspot is still needed to be properly extinguished. firemen were then able to assess

the situation and adjust accordingly a serious or not viewable to the eye. we took photos that were able to determine which direction and i traveled through the building. my next example occurred a week ago. they launched our falcon uav and horrible to clear large areas that would normally take much longer comment above regarding stories and customer money. the use of loud as to apply resources in that effort. it really does not a lot to do with law enforcement does offer a glimpse into the real benefit of systems are not as affordability. they spent nearly $10,000 to determine an increase in waster for the previous year. my team and a complete at same

survey for a mere $200. i find back and forth, we were able to combine the photos we took a geographic reference data and provide the landfill to an accuracy of 10 cubic centimeters. sometimes hours and days that outages refinanced to photograph a crime scene and cannot exceed 20 times. it is strict protocols that allow us to fight during the day and we cannot say more than 400 feet off the ground. while military unmanned aircraft are as large in size and cost our equipment is small and relatively inexpensive. our equipment is not possess capability to carry sensors to replace a spacer spacer look for your home. recently arizona air force website and then in 1934 photo of an airport police officer with the telegraph machine strapped to his leg. aviation public safety have a

long-standing relationship. but he cannot recover a memory stick and write an aerial view for a fraction of the cost. i estimate it can complete 30% of the main deviation for 2% of the cost. at just $25 an hour compared to the cost of man deviation can reach $250 to thousands of dollars an hour. it costs just 1 cent to charge the battery we use insider system. my agencies use of unmanned aircraft is primarily for search and rescue a crime scene reconstruction that must be said any tool can be abused. this is not unique to law enforcement nor did it begin with unmanned aircraft. while the use of aircraft requires policies and procedures , handling of photographs and video has been around one person in four years and i can speak to a strong code of conduct that addresses more than just the use of unmanned

aircraft. leadership organizations like chiefs of police have recently released unmanned aircraft policy guideline that encourages abcs to drop retention policies whereby the information we collect is not not determined evidence was deleted. guidelines have been endorsed tennis with their data agencies that might develop robust policies, quality training tools that unmanned aircraft programs. i hope my testimony is offered a realistic perspective of the benefits of unmanned aircraft. thank you for the opportunity. >> thank you very much. our next witness, amie stepanovich -- should i pronounce that quickly? >> stepanovich. >> stepanovich i'm sorry. the domestic surveillance program. her work is specifically focused on the fourth amendment drone

surveillance. she received her jd from new york law school can exercise florida state university. please go ahead. >> thank you, chairman leahy, ranking member grassy members of the committee. in a statement, i spake recognizes positive uses in the united states. however when drones have expectation of personal information identifiable individuals, both are necessary for fairness, privacy and accountability are preserved. reset records under the freedom of information act demonstrate customs and border protection of technology for signals an interception in human identification. they've expressed interest in the purchase of you served on technology. records release of law

enforcement and other states are using drums. they miss us and just for surveillance and law enforcement have expressed interest in using nonlethal weapon on drones. the privacy and security concerns are rising from drones need to be addressed. state and local governments have considered a byte array to abuses but drone technology that congress can do more. epic offers the best method to provide the level of protection. all drone operator should submit detailed reports on the intended use from issuance of the license contingent on completion of reports and private right of action and other penalties should ensure compliance with what has been reported. bart requirement should be mandated for law enforcement use of drones for exigent circumstances and bolster the

requirement rot in a targeted by law enforcement should be prohibited. they conduct surveillance of individuals on prop erase and a statute recognizing the enhanced capabilities of drones with provide and all operator should be subject to audit and oversight. i will be pleased to answer your question. >> thank you very much. our next witness was michael disconsolate the association for man vehicle systems national nonprofit exclusively to promoting unmanned systems. previously worked in the office of deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear matters and the civil, environmental and engineering on rhode island and i should also note will be

taking turns. senator roberts will be the first to go. we'll keep this going so this can continue. go ahead, mr. toscano. >> good morning, mr. leahy, ranking member grassy. i want to thank you for london to testify today. my organization, the association and aerial vehicles or so were world's largest to advance and that unmanned systems and robotic communities. we have been a 6300 members in the united states. industries at the forefront of the technology will not only benefit society but also the u.s. economy. earlier this month my organization released a study which found the unmanned aircraft is poised to create 70,000 new jobs in $13.6 billion

of economic impact within the first three years of following integration of unmanned aircraft in the air space. however the industry understand this technology is new to most americans and their opinions formed by what they see in the news. today's hearing is an excellent opportunity to address the misconceptions about the technology and discuss how it will be used for domestic applications. you probably noticed i do not use the term drone. the industry refers to technology of unmanned aircraft systems or uas because it's more than a pilotless vehicle. a ues concludes technology on the ground with controls. i like to say this not being unmanned about unmanned systems. the term drone carries with it a hostile connotation and does not reflect how is uas or use domestically as you heard from

mr. miller. uas i used to perform dangerous and difficult tasks more safely and more efficiently. they are used to assess flooding of the red river in the upper midwest. there used to help battle wildfires in california and they are being used to study everything from hurricanes in the gulf of mexico, tornadoes in the great plains and volcanoes in hawaii. unlike military uas, the system is most likely to use a small systems and way less than 500 -- less than five pounds. as the weaponization it's a nonstarter. the faa prohibits supplying weapons on any civil aircraft. for the record, a uav does not support civil uas spirit i want

to correct the misconception there is no regulation of domestic uas spirit they regulate where, when and why unmanned aircraft will be flown. if a public entity wants to fly a ues, they must obtain authorization from the faa. uass are flown lower than 400 feet during daylight hours. it is currently a violation of faa regulations to fly a uas for commercial purposes. as we focus on uass or law enforcement, it's important to recognize the robust legal framework already in place, but in the fourth amendment of our constitution decades of case law. >> mr. toscano, sorry to interrupt. we will have discussions of the fourth amendment and how it involves and i appreciate you

telling us what we should call them. you leave that decision to less and will call what you think to call. we appreciate that very much. professor brian hirono at washington school of law, researching intersection of law and emergence of the american bar association. the stanford law school center for society previously served as director. mr. calo, go ahead. >> thank you commensurately economic member grassy members of the committee for the opportunity to testify today. as he munched on a law professor mostly here to answer your question and so i won't read my testimony you have before you in the record. a couple quick points by way of summary. first his folks are very worried

about the privacy implications of drones thus are well-founded. especially because drones drive down the cost of surveillance considerably and turn incidents will go a. american concerns are legitimate for another reason, which is there's very little in american privacy law that would limit for surveillance. just a couple examples of that. there's no privacy in public or from a public vantage. there's no privacy in contraband and said the idea is you could imagine drones flying around, not the one on the table, but the ones that exist today in department of homeland security is akin to that of fly around the censors before trace amounts of drugs and so forth. the limits on private

individuals i realize it's obviously about mom force. the limits are if anything probably few where and then you also have a senator grassley mentioned the issue of the first amendment, which may in some way pushback against limit on drones by the press. i think the best way to address this issue is to find the tracker inadequate privacy doctrine into the 21st cent jury, but short of that, one measure we should consider is that the faa would kick the tires on privacy as part of this licensing process. we should be careful about passing a national law restrict teen drones in particular because frankly this is not a of privacy law is a problem that far else drakes just drones. i'd be happy to take questions. >> thank you. i thank you for summarizing.

mr. miller, i appreciate you being here, especially since you're the manager of one of the only law enforcement approach them and in the country to operate a domestic drone. i appreciate which you understood about safety privacy concerns and so on. do you think it would ever be appropriate for law enforcement agents these to her a drone lethal weapons? >> absolutely not. in the four years of research into my program can always not seen a single thing that would present that if any tool usable information. >> to get that impression from your colleagues? >> absolutely. >> what about nonlethal weapons, tear gas, pepper spray, hand

grenades? >> that's been brought up before. and our experience and the risk of use of less than lethal munitions such that they are being backed out out of a shotgun combining this together is probably not the most responsible thing to do. >> i understand the set for you showed me they are can be unlocked, but do you think there would be sub for the future like persistent surveillance are tracking, hours of surveillance or hours of tracking? >> what i tell you now is that it's not affordable. why we use them because they are cheap to operate. as far as persistent surveillance, right now the capability is not new. we can do a persistent surveillance mission, but i can

tell you the need for that is relatively low. in fact, in my 13 years i don't know the persistent surveillance operation has ever been a part of. >> technically would be feasible. is that correct quick >> recipes built where the military. >> thank you. ms. stepanovich, i probably mispronounced it again and i do apologize. as drone technologies become more advanced, not just shoot the government is in mr. miller has spoken frank leon not, but the ability of private companies and individuals true to privacy americans, what do you see as the most significant? one or two of the most significant privacy domestic use of drones, what would it be?

>> the most significant trends of domestic use? >> the most significant privacy threats from domestic use. >> one is going to be what you would just mention this the persistent surveillance. although mr. miller talked there is no need for that, we sought in united states in its opening remark that law enforcement has conducted surveillance using other technologies and that is going to be a significant consideration going forward. i also extend the faa is prohibited from regulating aircraft for use of drones that there's going to be an issue with stalking harassment and other crimes by individuals and perhaps corporations as well. >> this congress have a role to play in this area?

>> yes, i do believe they have a significant role to play. as an mention opening statement, the states have the extensively on surveillance laws. at my last check over 30 states introduced legislation. congress can provide nationwide race on privacy standards in order to ensure individual rights and liberties are protected against surveillance. >> thank you. i also have a question for mr. toscano. i'll submit that for the record. i'd appreciate if you could respond. professor calo coming attack to the supreme court cases and aerial surveillance, which we have read, but do you believe the supreme court cases are adequate in the area of unmanned surveillance?

>> i'm not sure i even think they are adequate for purposes of man surveillance, with unmanned there's an additional danger that is the cosco.you see more of it. so i'm not sure they are adequate. they need to be updated. >> thank you very much. senator grassley. >> the supreme court a solid observations in a navigable airspace every person's property does not violate the fourth amendment. in several cases police were allowed to conduct surveillance over private property at hate 400 feet to 1000 feet. how long must a strong fly before it triggers a reasonable expectation of privacy or trespass under the fourth amendment and what a feature on would have or? >> that is an excellent question

to which i josh of the executive search. it is true if they said there were two trespass that would trigger the fourth amendment. it used to be one of the areas up and down but after caspian commercial, you could only own the property to the area you could reasonably enjoy. cert money if the requester how are you a trespass. even a few hundred feet of the probably would not. as to hovering, i'm not sure there would be a distinction drawn between capability or not. a helicopter case and helicopters are capable of hovering in place. i'm not sure i would be seen as a distinction. >> i want to ask ms. stepanovich about the same issue. how low do you think a drunken fly before impact and the fourth

amendment? >> or 400-foot mark was vindicated by the supreme court because in that specific case, that was the height of the term question was flying out. however, it's an open question on whether the lower vehicles to be included in the reasonable expectation of privacy or personal trespass. >> the two of you again once this question. is the addition of the elegy such as facial recognition, biometric, thermal imaging equipment affect whether there's a reasonable expectation of privacy under the fourth amendment? first u.n. menu. >> eight days. we have a case involving thermal imaging where we needed a warrant for at least a search for officers to look in and see intimate details. one concern i have is an open question as to drones to fly

around and not feed images to law-enforcement, they just detect chemicals are scanned for unusual patterns, under the dog sniffing cases, given they are only looking for evidence of illegally to be under the constitution is an open question and one that's key to very well. >> ms. stepanovich. >> jones definitely will impact an individual expectation of privacy. in regard to the chemical sniffers that mr. calo discuss tremendous technology developed by department of defense, dhs in use by the new police department and that can scan for chemical traces down to incredibly small traces you may come into contact with accidentally and people can be triggered as potential targets based on those streets.

>> professor calo, private individuals and commercial companies are allowed to use drones come if you started using a two check meters, are there pdas absent a warrant? >> unless the officers instruct the individuals to do this surveillance, they would likely need a warrant for that. the fourth amendment only applies to state actors. some limitations will apply to private parties and so for instance there was a surveillance case involving trade secret pack two via a trade law even though it didn't violate the fourth amendment. >> professor trained to combine several questions, but i have to stop at this one. with regard to commercial

applications and we've heard concerns about private data collected by companies for advertising or other business purposes. what restrictions to limitations on data collection that corporations exist? >> technically speaking, the first amendment should not apply differently in terms of gathering information. mostly it's that people are allowed to say and so forth. there have been cases just in the upper right to photograph police and public and so it's a mixed picture. >> well, thank you very much. i am one that has real concern about drones used commercially inside america. i know for drones can do and mr. toscano tummy started out out with a seductive thing and that if they can produce large amounts of new job, which move

at all like to have happen. however, i ain't seen drones do all kinds of names has all kinds of things bring on great caution. i think we have to look to a purposes can drones the legitimate use. how do you certify the equipment against all things can be added. it may well not be the goal to carry munitions on a drone, but what can be done illegally and how can the government prevent that from happening i think the ability to what altitude can i fly? what kind of recognition are they capable of at various sites to today's? can i take pictures of an

individual or a window inside their home, through the window of their business, on the property in which they live. drones are hard to spot from us the ability to protect yourself is not great. let me ask you this question. you have really outlined a very legitimate use for drones, which is a careful litany of law enforcement functions. i assume there's some forest fire issues for which you could use a drone as well. but you've been through the process to operate in unmanned aircraft. can you describe the process, how rigorous is that? how long did it take your office to gain approval for its cli and

what conditions do you think she faced on the granting of law enforcement use of drones? connected to key point of the conversation. the process was rigorous. it was long. it took us approximately eight months to get the certificate that allows us to fly. the certificate allows us to fly daytime after 400 feet off the ground we must remain -- >> let me ask you. are your uavs' are defied and remote pilot certified? >> is a wonderful question and the answer is no. i think you're referring to a certificate of public aviation. the airframe has been through rigorous process to make sure the components that make up the aircraft are produced

responsibly under good materials, better and pass the test. in and the system here, not of the equipment has passed certification process to make sure not going to fall out of the sky. the approach taken is not one of certification of the aircraft certification or risk mitigation of the operation. this system and i say worst-case scenario is falling out of the sky and shutting off which it never has this relatively though risk for two reasons. one it's two pounds and can cause a lot of damage for two, we operate incident parameters that we have that ability. the best way to describe it is they do not cross. the public's not going to be rocking for a crime scene, so we are over top of what we call participatory people, our staff. they seek equipment to make sure the safe operation and that's

really the direction it's taken because it's relatively though risk. in the past, there's at least one life at risk. >> is there any regulation that indicates the distance you must keep from an airplane, whether commercial or private, small or large quick >> part 91 for deviations have distance in place to stay awake. really the issue here is we can fly above 400 feet off the ground and that's really the lower limit for everybody else. in fact, you can't go below 500 v., so there's a 100-foot buffer. >> okay, my time is that. i was going to ask mr. toscano,

has anyone in the industry figured out how to create an unmanned aircraft that can detect common sense and avoid other aircraft? >> the faa right now is being mean needed for this to tender 2015 to ensure integration of systems into the national airspace. that is the safety requirements as we look at it. sissy and avoid for aircraft is an essential part. technologies developed today i will be certified at some point in time to ensure they are safe. as you heard there's a wide range. >> i'm not talking about that. perhaps he not talking about the situation where a pilot landed in new york at a commercial jet side i see a drone. do you know where it was from

her when i was doing there? >> the answer is no. i'm not sure they've actually classified what it was. they haven't finally determined what it was the pilot saw. i'm not trying to be flippant here, would we talk about that are made all the time and are inaccurate. until you find out the details that could have been a model plane, other things we don't know about at this point in time. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. mr. toscano, one of the reform act's come in the fa is required to establish unmanned aircraft system test ranges within the united states. i understand the faa has requested proposals to create the site and i understand the

largest public university in my home state is an alliance that is one of the candidates for these sites. are you familiar with the aspect and how do you see the site and the testing connected they are as contributing to the necessary regulations we might need in the united states come including regulations relate to privacy? >> that's an excellent question. this was back to the responsibility to assure anything that's light-sensitive or the other way you can assure safety is to test them. the test site stated, one already exists in new mexico state and six new ones coming forward will have the capability to make sure any unmanned air system will have the ability to operate a flame to the national airs race. that is designed in which case they will certify the platform, the operator and the operational

environment. >> be some fairly confident that will lead to improvements come at any making sure -- >> most definitely. get 50 different countries petition from 37 states involved in the six identified in the reauthorization bill are being funded by the states. in the future, every state can have their own test site in order to ensure the technology deployed in the national airspace system backspace. >> ms. stepanovich, some proponents of sub for, said the technology argue current safeguards provides a significant protection of privacy and they know we have on the books related to the subject

knowledge he, was third in the books related to use of other technologies that can overlap and include this type of technology. certain remedies that provide civil remedies for violations of those laws. some have suggested legal protections should apply the only two drones and may be sufficient to alleviate constitutional problems are privacy concerns. in your view, is this approach correct and what are the main differences between men and an unmanned aircraft as it relates to protection of americans are privacy concerns and their rights under the fourth amendment. >> thank you for the question. we don't believe this and a statue would provide limit on drone surveillance in the united states. to privacy laws are targeted in the approach taken to

privacy.com this is surveillance the drones are able to conduct and this is why were actually advocating for additional legislation on drone surveillance. the primary difference between and an unmanned vehicles has been brought up that drones will be old to connect more surveillance. they're cheaper to buy and subject individuals. some of the most surveillance technology in this rather puts individuals at risk. >> part of your analysis has to do with the stealth factor by virtue of size in the way many of them are operated. they don't make as much noise, they're harder to see an harder to hear they can move in and out. you won't necessarily note there they are.

i say that's one of the factors that significantly factors into your assessment on that front. a separate quakes >> yes, senator. >> you mention your testimony several concerns you have about drones. even with present day technology that places a significant practical limitations on the use of drones. as justice alito discussed in a recent opinion from the some of the privacy protections are neither constitutional nor statutory or practical. as technology advances, those limitations cease to act as an effective constraint on the privacy concerns discussed here. as you note the technology related to drones has developed much in the last decade will continue to advance them make this can terrance even more significant. one of my concerns relates to the coming years unlikelihood those limitations will recede

along with the technological advances. in other words as the technological advances that make drones more effective and to convey more significant. how should the potential for development and future uses of systems affect your interior when we examine the privacy implications of drone technology? >> the best thing to do because of the incredibly enhancement and where it's going to be, recently rare and expensive and is commonplace as we need legislation that's going to be technology neutral and that means it not quickly outdated as technology increases and this has been done in several laws in the past. if we look at the communication privacy act in the process of being updated many years later, it was able to hold up through two minus advances in to elegy

and only recently needs to be updated because of not being able to perceive the future of the internet at that time and it's important for a legislation to be as technology neutral as possible. >> thank you very much, senator leahy. i reference in my opinion state and the vast done by people's passwords and all that. if somebody broke into your house, you would want them arrested. erase an egregious breach of people's privacy. i am going to, i have to go back to the fore because of the budget honors. senator franken has offered to take the gavel and i are sheet

that. senator klobuchar. >> thank you. i do appreciate the man with the red river valley flooding and forest fires and those views here. i am concerned as they hear more about potential for individual citizen for commercialization and obviously the surveillance piece as well my first question is where she was asking about this tape the issues and the airspace. holidays 400 feet in limitations, but if you started getting these in the hands of people that didn't know how to run on for something went wrong, what would happen? what would happen if one came up against a small aircraft or would it matter? is and has some safety concerns with? >> when you look at the national

airs pace, there are rules and regulations says you cannot fly within that airspace. if you do that but there is any type of machine, you are violating the law and there is a safety concern you would be concerned. >> what would happen if one had a small plane? it's like when birds had a plan. >> you can see what they are and they range from two pounds to large type systems. any incident where there was a coalition, there could be damaged. >> okay. the second piece of information is back to you, mr. calo, i know someone asked her about it earlier, but what are the limits right now if someone wanted to privately find one? >> well, their state statues and

sometimes unsafe in a common-law privacy upon seclusion that says if you violate privacy, although you often have to do it repeatedly someone could see you in civil court. there's a surveillance case that came out in favor of the plaintiff. >> so someone could buy one right now? >> you have to get certification from the faa? >> not really. i don't know if this stretches the limits, but you could buy an air for $300. it's the vehicle you can control and flight around your neighborhood within line of sight and likely you're not going to be running -- you're not going to get sued in all likelihood. the faa has banned the commercial use today, but that

effect to be relaxed in 2015 and of course we have an economic incentive. my own personal view, i think this is a wonderful thing because this is deeply transformative and i basically find smartphones. once private industry gets their hands, we'll see really great wonders. however one never get airbus to place limits because of our reactions. were not going to avail ourselves to technology. >> stepanovich, by the way i have a hard lesson income as they relate to you. how would you respond to that in terms of the issues in private commercialization quiets >> right now is the even without operators being legally able to operate, every recount every month month i hear stories of the fa having to shut down a commercial operator trained to

take advantage before they're able to. so i think there are going to be incredible commercial uses. google has started using them to assist in operations in other countries not yet in the united states. they are going to be used commercially and as i said my opening statement that creates new challenges as well. >> that comes against the laws and according to congressional research, they have fresh ignition technology but are these advanced features and how do you see this being developed? either they could ask you, mr. toscano. >> it is no different than the technology that exists today. there is no leap taken place in the introduction of a uas.

the concerns you have that we can do the things that a low cost is the same thing that caused the economic benefits in what we see at the utilization. so it is something we have to address because there's a huge upside to this technology and because of that, you cannot stop people from misusing any technology, just like the facial recognition, thermal imaging. if you misuse it, you should be punished. >> i just don't think the laws have caught up with mr. technology. >> i may be the issue we should be discussing. the technology discussed today, not delivery system. >> laws need to be sophisticated as potentially breaking them. i think a sober attitude. thank you very much.

>> senator cruz. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for coming and testifying today. it seems to me that drones art nonchocolate tool that can be used for newly or can be abused. when we sing about our conduct overseas in particular in counterterrorism, drones have proven an effective tool in certain different stances and have enabled us to deal with terrorists without placing servicemen and women to in harms way. at the same time, it seems to me oversees our conduct is to be consistent with the laws of war and domestically in the united states, that our conduct in all it's to be consistent with the constitution.

and how that applies to drone surveillance or a topic for another day use of lethal force is not necessarily an easy question. i would like to begin mr. miller, with a question for you, which is a good limitations on the use is a drones your members would support as common sense protections for the privacy of americans to do since? >> the easy answer is yes. we already look to case law. one of the things we position our program on a concept is not really invented a new abilities to collect information. you know, the camera has done that for us. it's done that for decades in

the past. so there is case law out there that speaks to the direction we take when we consider putting a camera in the air. really the fact that it flies on the system for the police helicopter you see really hasn't changed the way we think about it or view it. >> what limitations of members support? >> let me clarify. the limitations we support are the ones that currently identified to the study of case law that has occurred. >> it seems to me there should be an important distinction between individuals for whom there is probable cause, substantial evidence to be suspected of a crime in my enforcement has had extensive tools for operating in the collection of data concerning ordinary citizen.

when you overlay the availability of drones proliferation of care mess. my hometown of houston recently voted to take down red light cameras. i think a great many of us, myself included have very deep concerns about the government collecting information and with the ease and availability of drones is a real combat of going about the business might be monitored, catalogued and recorded by the federal government. i for one would have deep concerns about that. i've asked the question of ms. stepanovich. do you share those concerns?

if so, what system the limitations should be considered to protect the privacy rights of all americans? >> anytime when you come up with a new surveillance technology, you are going to have instances where the technology catches that is doing bad deeds. however, those few instances are at the expense of comp disturbance of all citizens as they go about daily life is not consistent with constitutional protections of what our country was built on. we need to prevent drones for becoming police patrols flying up and down when you're not talking about driving up and down the street collecting authors of information about individuals supplemented by the facial recognition technology. we need to enforce a work requirement for drones and

circumstances for collecting criminal evidence in the need to address in addition to law enforcement is commercial uses of drones. >> mr. toscano. >> senator, that is the core of the issue we have here today. the conversation should be focused on the government's right to collect, use, store, disseminate, share information. last year we put out a code of conduct that says this is how you should use uass in order to get the benefit and make sure you do not violate the privacy of an individual. the acp, international association of chiefs of police put out guidelines to which the aclu has been yours and how to use this technology. there is determined this opportunity for this technology to be used and it is in a different type of surveillance. the technology is the same that exist today. it's how it's being used in the

benefits you get from having a low cost reliable capability that can provide you with the ability to move a payload from one point to another. but the human being involved is the one responsible. the individual operating platforms to respond to bowl and if the person uses it in an incorrect way or misuses it, the person should be held accountable. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator hirono. >> thank you to all of the panelists. professor calo, you're the person who mentioned the fourth amendment only applies to state actors. at least there are protections against unreasonable government

intrusion. my concern centers around what happens when nonstate actors can utilize technology and after 2015 sky's the limit. do you think congress has the power to prohibit private citizens and corporations from using drones for storing images are what is the limit to what congress can do to provide limitations on nonstate actors and use of drones quite >> congress can provide his limits. again, the first amendment draws a distinction between stopping someone from talking about something in general prohibition. ..

i was intrigued at -- sorry. you know who i'm talking about. you said that any laws that we oppose should be technology and

i'm very intrigued by that. what would you consider a technology neutral way to set some limits on the private use of drones? >> i think the best ways to look at the surveillance that drones can conduct, look at data retention and data minimization, make king sure that no individual has persistent database of information collected on them. one of the great places we have to turn are the fair information practices which have been incorporated by the ocd in their guidelines to look for what detections need to be in place whenever information is given about individuals. >> so misstep paunovich, some of the other panel members can weigh on in this too. it would be pretty difficult to enforce these kinds of statutes.

for law enforcement so if we establish some parameters, geographic parameters or high parameters are visual parameters who is supposed to enforce whether all these visitations are being met? >> some of the things we have asked for include audits when possible violations are occurring so individuals who observed drones being operated in a way that they are not supposed to be can actually bring suit against the drone operator. however i want to note that the federal statute would be enforceable. the apis guidelines and the police guidelines, they have one line about privacy and the chief of police guidelines are a little more protected however neither of those are enforceable provisions and i think --

>> do you think private cause of action in this area might be a very important part of the law that we propose? >> i'm not sure where i come down on that. i think there are dangers of legislating at the federal level and one approach to think about is to allow the states to come up with individual ways of doing things and see whether the common law torts can adopt to changing circumstances. i do think some safeguards are absolutely necessary because otherwise americans are going to reject this technology which can be very beneficial. >> thank you. my time is up. >> senator blumenthal. >> thank you mr. chairman. let me pursue the question that arises from the last response if i may and ask you whether in fact if there is legislation,

shouldn't it be at the federal level because we are dealing with an industry which is federal in scope, issues that pertain to air safety and obviously the faa has a mandate to provide for integration by 2015 because of the prospect of 30,000 or more of these uavs, drones whatever you want to call them flying around in our airspace. isn't this quintessentially an issue for federal regulation if there is going to be legislation? >> the short answer is that i just don't know. i completely agree with respect to safety of course the faa has to have expertise and it has its own integrative approach. i also support as a stop at the idea of asking the federal aviation administration to consider privacy as one of the

prerequisites to issuing license. i think that all makes a lot of sense. i do think there is some benefit of the fact that the states or laboratories of ideas so you have some states as they look and states that go nothing goes here. >> i agree with the state law enforcement enforcement officials that states sometimes are much better equipped and able to deal with these kinds of questions and i think at a certain level very likely states can safeguard privacy concerns, establish standards that are then proven or disproved in the laboratory and as i think it was just as frankfurter referred to them as a laboratory for legal development. do you know of any challenges that are ongoing now and any of the members of the panel can respond, challenges either

through private practices or law enforcement actions pending in the courts and maybe i should begin with ms. stepanovich. >> i know of one right now. customs and border protection as an ongoing program where they allow state and local law enforcement and other federal agencies to borrow the predator drones and use them to conduct surveillance not related to the customs and border. this is something they been pursuing and we are submitting a petition for them to suspend this action. >> you are suspending it today? >> in north dakota these practices have been used to conduct surveillance of an alleged -- who was held up on his property and they flew the drone over his property and collected information about him and use that information to arrest him. it's the first drug to you --

arrest u.s. citizen on u.s. soil. >> the courts could be relied on to protect privacy and a lone first meant that those would arise and they context of efforts to include evidence in a criminal prosecution rather than let's say surveillance or monitoring or other potentially invasive that cavity that might not result in a prosecution where excluded evidence would be filed. >> exactly and we believe that we need the protection in advance of getting to that stage in the prosecution. when a court challenge has argued been brought for evidence or surveillance issues that means rights of arctic arctic and violated me think that a legislative effort could put protections in place to prevent that from ever happening. >> my general view is that we need to update the law. clearly there is a need for everyone's interest to update

the law if only to provide the industry with the kind of bright lines and standards it needs and deserves to develop and apply this new technology. the case that his thoughts by all sides for reliance and the doctrines applicable here is the 1986 case involving aerial surveillance from an airplane where the united states pain court upheld that practice by law enforcement officials and here we have an entirely new advancing fast-changing potentially very intrusive technology but also with very positive uses as well if properly channeled. so, i hope that whether it's state courts and state law or federal courts in advance of legislation or federal agencies

the faa for example in prime privacy standards can somehow develop doctrine to update our current constitutional principles and safeguard privacy which is very much in need of protection not only in the collection of data but also retention and distribution. for me, the issues are not only what private companies or the government does to collect data but also how they retain it and how they store it, how they keep it and what they do with it. selling, exchanging and disseminating so thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you senator. >> thank you mr. chairman and as the chair of the privacy subcommittee senator franklin takes a piece issues with frequency and i'm reminded when he first came to this committee

the word privacy could not be found in our constitution that we have established that right and i believe most of us believe it's a very important right that we cherish and protect and that is what this conversation is about. we are trying to take a document, the constitution in this case, many years ago and apply it to the modern world and at times we have had to struggle with that. the telephone was beyond anyone's imagination when the constitution was written. the internet, all of the trafficking that goes on through computers. 20 years ago it was unthinkable and i will tell you certainly as the chairman of the subcommittee that deals with the military and our intelligence operations, the capacity we have for surveillance is dramatically improving and we are using it to our benefit to keep america safe and i'm glad that we are.

when it comes to this emerging technology, the challenge has been discussed here on this committee, the intersectintersect ion of our personal privacy and the margin of technology and what we need to do by way of law and policy to really face it. professor calo, is that correct? the cases that you noted in your testimony you'd really as you said were right on point and more or less the supreme court is talking about gps detection of suspect thermal and the -- thermal imaging so it appears to me there is more to be said when it comes to the question of our civil liberties. the prosecution of crime and the use of this technology. what do you think are the major elements that are still out

there unresolved in this court decision? >> there is a tremendous amount of flexibility in the doctrine. what we are talking about is whether someone has a subjective expectation of privacy prepared to accept as reasonable so we have data point saying if someone flies over your house or your company or whatever it happens to be with a helicopter or a plane your expectation of privacy needs to be the people in national airspace. we have cases suggesting that a fixing a gps device to a vehicle is technically a trespass and a search under the constitution. i agree that they are not directly on point. >> what about red light cameras? i am driving through the center section and i didn't even know it. there is a red light camera that is monitoring my conduct and may end up taking a photograph and

sending me a ticket in a week or two. >> i think there are real dangers there but i think the current constitutional doctrine will not capture that. that is to say i don't think that's going to be seen as violating the fourth amendment and i don't think most uses of drones are going to be seen as violating the fourth amendment. that is potentially really the problem which is that not just drones but surveillance technology has vastly outpaced privacy law in my view, and it needs to be up dated. one of the dangers of regulating the space in limiting the regulation to unmanned aircraft systems is that there are other things like trafficking arrests. there are robots that climb the side of the building. would those be captured by a system? i think it's updating all the privacy to reflect private technology. >> mr. miller you are in the technology field and currently there are efforts underway in many communities, not all, to

collect this information from general conduct of the population. do you see that as a parallel to the use of drones? >> no i don't think it's parallel. i think you speak to really the issue at hand and the information. as i am listening to professor calo i'm thinking about the medical information and i think that what we are doing today, the conversation, medical information and the protections that protects my medical information matters that a doctor collects it and he asked that hard question that a nurse doesn't or the physician's assistant is only allowed to ask me these questions. i think in this conversation it's very important to focus on the information. i can tell you that that is my focus on information, no matter how we collected and what they do with it and how we maintain that public trust by the public by not taking a photo if you for

a traffic infraction and putting it on a piece of paper. >> let me just challenge you on that point. it's not a matter of how we collect it or what we do with it. what about the right to be left alone which is really basic in america? and whether we are talking law enforcement or the private sector but just generally collecting information about my wife. >> i think you make a great point but again i think you bring that question of i just want to be left alone and you bring up that to, it's not really just law enforcement but what can we collect and once we have at what can we do with it? >> professor calo this common-law tort you talked about, the first time i've ever heard about it? >> intrusion upon -- >> how often has it been tested? is that an established tort?

>> it was the intellectual underpinnings are the right to be left alone so it's an 1890 law review and sets out the elements that a later codified or adopted by other courts. part of the reason is the conduct at issue has to be pretty outrageous for her to trigger a mess because all of us are looking at one another of the times they want people to have a threshold that gets met. i do though tend to agree that there really is a subjective element of harm to being and living in a society where you feel like you are under surveillance of irrespective of whether the data is being collected or shared just feeling like you are living under drones could have an effect. >> mr. chairman i wish we had more time here and i think the panel for their contribution. i will tell you -- i have to leave unfortunately but i want to mention that after

easter recess we are going to have a hearing in the subcommittee on the constitution about these of drones in the international context. i am glad senator leahy kicked this off in senator franken but we will go to the whole question of the lethal miss of drones under the constitution which is another challenging area of the law but i thank you for this hearing it's timely and very important. >> thank you, senator. as senator durbin says i am chairman of the subcommittee on privacy technology and the law and this sort of seems like it could have been -- this hearing could've been held in that subcommittee. i'm glad we did the full committee. this is a perfect example of why i believe there is -- i would characterize the constitution as a living constitution. the founders i think it would be

fair to say probably didn't anticipate this. they didn't anticipate the phona certain point we had to decide whether phone taps were a violation of the fourth amendment and that really came down to people's expectations of privacy. that is kind of a big part of what we are talking about here today. look, there is no question that this technology has unbelievable potential for law enforcement, for legitimate law enforcement or commercial applications. certainly no one would our you agricultural applications and no one would argue for mining and

there are all kinds of unbelievable uses of this. but we do have these privacy concerns. i guess one of my questions is about who should oversee this. who exactly and i will start with ms. stepanovich. the last year the gao, the government accountability office told us that no single federal agency is the statutorily designated with responsibility to regulate private matters. they were referring to related to domestic drones. there is disagreement on whether that responsibility should be centralized in one body and if

so which agency could do it the most effectively. in your opinion what type of oversight would most effectively protect american civil liberties or privacy when it comes to uas? >> mr. calo mentioned a couple of times that there is a stopgap stopgap -- stopgap. i recognize that in february of 2012 after the faa actively passed and petitioned the faa to implement privacy regulations as part of their process to increase the use of drones in the united states. we believe the faa does have a critical role to play in that by mandating as a contingent for drone operators to turn over information about what surveillance operations they are going to conduct and to make that information publicly available and to hold them accountable by sticking to that information so we think the faa

is the primary regulating source and we also believe when other entities choose to operate drones such as customs and border protection or the department of justice that they need to implement privacy regulations and surveillance limitations within their own use of drones subject to rulemaking. >> i'm not quite sure who is overseeing back, but if there is a single agency -- >> if we had a privacy concern or a debate right now today where would you go for that? you would not go to the faa. they have very limited if any expertise in the area of privacy, but what they do have and what is mandated by them as they are responsible for safety. anything that flies in the national airspace can only be done by virtue of the faa saying that it's done in a safe manner

and that is the responsibility of the faa and that's a tremendous responsibility that we take in high regard. so i think we should let the faa do what they do best and when you talk about privacy we are very fortunate to have lawyers in front of me and in back of me. [inaudible] >> those are the individuals and as we talked about today this is about privacy in general. this is about the concern of gathering information, how it is used, how it is stored, how it is discriminated and how it is destroyed. that's done through a different framework and so that is the essence of what we talk about and it will come down to the law whether it comes from the state laws or the constitution of the fourth amendment. >> you are talking about legislation. and the legislation by necessity

will kind of a point some agency to oversee this. who should that be professor? or if it's not one agency centralized? >> there is economic scholarship scholarship -- with a multiple hats approach and also i confess i'm not convinced that federal legislation is the right move at this time. i will disagree with mr. toscano about the faa. it's true starkly the faa has looked at it but i don't see any reason why the faa could not gain expertise around privacy. i received a letter from the faa faa -- >> the faa did tell gao that they have no expertise? >> that is true and i recall them telling the gao that but only in february i received a letter from the faa saying we liked your input on how we should think about privacy and

connection to testing centers of the truth of the matter is that think the faa is capable of gaining expertise as an agency is and they could he a good repository. >> okay well, we will keep thinking about that. we were talking and you guys there has been some testimony and talk and questions about or mention of data retention and dissemination. what are the issues and who would be overseeing that? in other words, again, is that a legislative responsibility and would we be talking about a privacy law regarding uavs or uas's information? >> the privacy act actually does

place some limits on sharing among agencies and with the public or private information with respect to state and government actors. >> i'm sorry to interrupt you but we have smartphones now and someone refer to this as a walking smartphone. >> that was me, yeah. >> well we are having a little bit of a problem you know, in that regard trying to put our finger on exactly how we would regulate that. >> senator i think i'd be ftc and fcc have struggled not just with network and the device itself but all of the apps. it's a little bit of a mess. i'm not sure that we will fare any better around drums. i think that perhaps it's a matter of triage. if we want to avail ourselves to technology and we should, and perhaps we should have at least something in place so americans feel more comfortable and i

think the most obvious authority for that right now is the faa although again i believe that we really should be updating the fourth amendment law in general to deal with contemporary surveillance technology. >> i'm just interested, we are we are not talking about technology that obviously we haven't talked about until now and we certainly wouldn't have been talking about it 10 years ago. so i'm wondering about nanotechnology. you know i think people would probably have been surprised before this hearing to see that, that's a uas. and that is what we are talking about in large part. how small can these things get and i think maybe the answer to that is we don't know and a thousand years from now i'll bet you they will be smaller.

and we may just be brains -- but nevermind that. but let's not go there. what are we talking about here in terms of the capabilities here are obviously -- i will go to ms. stepanovich. you go to handle this. you are talking about technology neutral but we are going to have have -- this knowledge is just going to exponentially get more sophisticated and probably smaller don't you think? >> i do believe so and one of the major images when we think of drones are the big predator drones which are being operated in the united states but we also have the ones that you see on the that you see on the desk in front of you all the way down to there or not drones the size of hummingbirds, microdrones and drones that are even smaller so the technology is increasing at an exponentially rapid rate and

as we move forward we will see the capabilities of these devices increase. >> so presumably at some point you could have one the size of a mosquito that has a battery that operates for weeks and you could have a mosquito following you around it not be aware that? >> there are r.d. images on line of a mosquito drone being developed by the national security agency and trying to figure out what technology they can make small enough to put on it. >> god help us when an adolescent boy gets a hold of one of those. mr. toscano. >> i don't know what that meant by the way. >> obviously we have had tremendous advances in technology over the last couple hundred years and we continue to understand how that may go forward. a lot of that is due to

different properties that have processing capabilities and things of that nature. the figure used with would be 30,000 in the airspace and now we are revising it to say 10,000. with those 10,000, they're not going to be 10,000 surveilling drones following americans. if you look at the report redid 80% of the application is going to be in farming and precision agriculture. if you look at it from a public safety standpoint and that includes law enforcement but also firefighters and first first responders and things of this nature you will see that that's a small quantity in the bigger picture. you know when ms. stepanovich mentioned about one that was used in order to go over a ranchers facility that was called then by federal and state entities to a federal request. could've been done with the helicopter, but the technology

was there and available and they took advantage of it. the point i'm making is that we seem to be fixated on the truck or there but if of this thing happening but like i say what we talk about is the privacy act of the information that is being collected. that is what is deemed critical and that's something we will have to keep dealing with, not just the technology. 50 years ago we had this thing called internet that the internet that came out of the military. there were many who are concerned about the privacy of this thing called the internet and you have picture personal data and connects to all these different entities without having any measures in place. 50 years later here we are and the internet is an interval part and helps us with our gross national product in our nation and the world. it has made our world better. we understand that's a true statement that we now have laws

that have come up that because someone is misusing this technology we have to put their rights legislation or the right parameters in place to make sure that we take advantage of all the upsides which is a huge upside and make sure it's protected. >> i think no one is questioning the commercial potential and the public safety potential and the public good that can come from this, but we are, one of my duties here in the senate is to look out for people's privacy and i think professor calo wanted to respond. >> thank you senator. appreciate it and i just wanted to use the internet analogy and say that when we first got the commercial and jet there were people who are very nervous about using it. they didn't want to do transactions on line and we had to get security adequate enough so people felt comfortable using the internet.

the same has to be said about drones. we have to realize the potential of drones and we need to get these privacy and civil liberty issues -- >> the safeguard and the ability to use them in the correct way. >> and we concur. >> one last thing that came up and then we will bring this to an end, ms. stepanovich facial recognition has been brought up and when i started to talk about the technological developments, i mean is there fear that this could be used in a way and again, the fear that we have to address in order to make sure that we are able to use it properly, that there will be

that use of facial recognitirecogniti on and not just in the hands of law enforcement or the government but also in the hands of private entities and what possible misuse could this be put to? >> i don't think there is much feared of the realistic expectation that this will be -- your already sing reports and both commercial and public entities wishing to deploy drones. facial recognition technology comes with its own risk because it totally connects an individual's life. you can keep a full picture of what happens what happens to enter schedule throughout the day not only the public life but their on line transactions. you can connect those two separate worlds once you start to blind fish recognition information so this technology in the hands of commercial and government operators on drums increases the kind of surveillance concerns for what

drones are going to be able to do. >> and could give everyone the sense of essentially having no privacy whatsoever in their lives which is a tremendous loss we have to make sure that we can handle that through the law so that we can do the positive uses of this technology. thank you all for your time here and your testimony, it's been a very productive hearing and it's clear to me the tremendous potential of this technology in law enforcement operations cannot be overstated but it's also clear that there are serious privacy and civil liberties concerns felt by all the members of this committee. we need to be doing more to prevent drones from being used in an abusive manner that

violates america's privacy rights and i think only if we do this follow-up on professor calo do the commercial applications and only if we do that properly. this hearing has been an important first step towards explaining these complex issues and i hope this panel will continue to work with me, all of you and other members of this committee on appropriate legislation to address the privacy concerns discussed today. thank you all again for your testimony. bickering record will stay open for a week if anyone would like to submit initial statements or questions.

the meeting is adjourned. thank you all. unconfirmed reports accuse the syrian government of using chemical weapons against rebel fighters. president obama commented on these reports during his trip to israel. >> with respect to chemical weapons, we intend to investigate thoroughly exactly what happens. obviously syria right now you have a war zone. you have information that is filtered out, but we have to make sure that we know exact to what happened, what was the nature of the incident, what can we document and what can we prove so i've instructed my teams to work closely with all of the countries in the region and international organizations

and institutions to find out precisely whether or not this red line was crossed. i will note without at this point having all the facts before me, that we know the syrian government has the capacity to carry out chemical weapons acts. we know that there aren't those in the syrian government who have expressed a willingness to use chemical weapons if necessary to protect themselves. i am deeply skeptical of any claim that in fact it was the opposition that used chemical weapons. everybody who knows the facts of the chemical weapons stock pile inside of syria as well as the syrian government's capabilities i think would question those

claims but i know they are floating out there right now. the broader point is that once we establish the facts, i have made clear that the use of chemical weapons is a game-changer and i want to make an announcement today about the next steps because they think we have to gather the facts. but i do think that when you start seeing weapons that can cause potential devastation and mass casualties, and you let the genie out of the bottle, then you are looking potentially add even more horrific scenes than we have already sing in syria and the international community has to to act on that additional information. as is always the case when it comes to issues of war and peace, i think having the facts before you act is very important

>> the u.s. ambassador to syria also discuss the allegations that the assad regime used chemical weapons. here is part of his testimony ao a house foreign affairs committee hearing. >> so far, we have no evidence to substantiate the reports that chemical weapons were used yesterday.emic but i want to underline that we are looking very carefullyea atd these reports. we are consulting with partners in the region and in the international community. more broadly, we have been very clear from the beginning about our concern that as the assad regime's military situation deteriorates and it becomes asrs the director of national intelligence said, it becomes ever more beleaguered, that it might be tempted to use chemicav weapons m. the president has been very clear in saying that if assad

and those under his command makn the mistake of using chemical weaponsen or if they fail to met their obligation to secure them, then there will be consequenceso and they will be heldcu accountable.re >> what with those consequences be ? accountable. >> what would those consequences be, ambassador? >> mr. chairman, in a hearing like this, i absolutely do not want to go into hypotheticals. i do want to underline that we take these reports and these possibilities very seriously. and we're using all of our available means to determine exactly what has happened. >> let me raise another point and that is to the transfer of weapons going through iraq, either over air space or by land

into syria. last week we had a report in reuters, that the iranian regime was increasing its assistance to the assad regime and clearly the observation has been that this is the lifeline. it's not just the foreign fighters but also the munitions that are being flown in. and it's being utilized through civilian aircraft, personnel are flying in by the way through air space as well as the weapons. so we see that and see at the same time hezbollah on the ground now in syria. this has been raised as i understand it, several times by the government in iraq. but still the government there is ramping this up.

if we really grasp the strategic opportunity here, it seems like one of the easiest things we could do would be to lean on the iraqis and get this process. i was going to ask how hard has the administration weighed in with iraqis? what has been tried to get them to cease and desift. and how congress, how might congress make this job clearer and easier for the administration if that's what's necessary here? >> mr. chairman, thank you for that. a couple of things i'd like to note first, the iranian relationship to the bashar al assad regime is not new but their assistance to the regime now in this conflict has grown

substantially. i could cite for example, that the iranian revolutionary guard corps lost a general in syria. and they have lost other personnel as well. and of course, i don't want to fail to mention that lebanonese hezbollah is playing a pernicious role and there are reports now of iraqi shia extremists going to places like coming up next on c-span2 hearings on hurricane sandy relief efforts. and tracking asteroids with the potential to hit the earth.

>> if you believe in something that is so right and so dear, so necessary you have to get in trouble but before we got in trouble as students and young people we studied. we didn't just wake up one morning and say we are going to go and sit in. we didn't just dream one day that we would come to washington and go on a freedom ride but that we are going to march on washington as we did in 1963 and

we were going to march from selma to montgomery as we did in 1965. we studied and we prepared ourselves. >> they intimidated so many people, white people in particular by using that phrase black power. when they use the word or that phrase black power, they thought black power meant destruction, blowing up the statue of liberty are ground zero, destroying america. it wasn't anything about destroying america. it was about rebuilding america and a new paradigm in terms of how we can be what each and every one of us going to elementary and school and -- the home of the free and brave.

>> secretary shaun donovan and representatives from the army corps of engineers testified on capitol hill about the rebuilding efforts after hurricane sandy. $60 billion has been allocated for senior lee. the senate homeland security committee is just over two hours. [inaudible conversations] >> secretary darcy is very nice to see you. thanks for our witnesses for joining us today. an important hearing on oversight and what we are doing right or what we are not doing right and what we can do better. as we all know it's october 29 but hurricane sandy made landfall and we know its impact was devastating and

heartbreaking. new jersey, new york and parts of england of england were hit particularly hard and on staten island we have 21 people who were killed and breezy point queens of fire destroyed a total of 100 homes in hoboken new jersey more than 1700 homes were flooded and we also pictures of the iconic scenery in new jersey where families spent their summers broken down and literally pulled into the ocean. delaware to the south of their we experience the level of devastation that our state was hit hard. widespread flooding caused severe damage to homes businesses and roads and businesses were washed out and transportation to hospitals and schools and to work here the human cost of the storm was severe. i mentioned the lives lost on staten island and totaling 162 people were killed as a result of hurricane sandy. estimates of the financial

damage the storm caused her $50 billion but when all is said and done sandy is expected to rank as the second costliest hurricane in my right after hurricane katrina. it will take years to recover from the devastation like this. it's important to get to the recovery ripen the aftermath we saw many problems during the recovery phase and it created great suffering. money was not well spent or coordinated. recovery move slowly as a result. for instance millions of dollars were spent running temporary housing for survivors in travel trailers and people stayed in those trailers far too long because permanent housing solution from not identify. rebuilding of housing was complicated because red tape prevented us from making the impact it could have made with that and the funding that was available. the post-katrina emergency management reform act of 2006 which was shepherded through this committee and the congress by senators collins and

lieberman took steps to try to fix these problems and to be honest we have seen a lot of improvement as a result of the act through their regional offices to build stronger relationships with state, local and tribal governments. this is not only improving our government's ability to respond to disasters but also enhance fema's capability to rebuild. the law requires fema to coordinate with other federal departments like national disaster recovery strategies to make sure we let the national disaster recovery framework which has helped organize and coordinate the recovery efforts to hurricane sandy. although the recovery from hurricane sandy is just beginning, unfortunately we haven't seen this sort of problems that we did after hurricane katrina. this committee now has responsibilities by a chairman begich in rank and member brand paul and they will do great work

in this recovery in particular. the key question after storm like this is weather was in aberration or a harbinger of things to come. a few short readers to go hurricanes along the north eastern half of east coast were relatively uncommon. hurricane sandy is the third major hurricane to threaten or strike the northeast coast in the last three years. hurricane irene devastated parts of east coast in 2011 and the year before that hurricane earl was a major threat. unfortunately the northeast midland and other volatile areas are expected to see more frequent and larger storms like sandy in the future. just this year just last month in fact the government accountability office at the new area to its high-risk list and the impact change the federal government. gao explained among other things climate change could support the threatened costs coastal areas of agriculture productivity increasing in tent city and

frequency of severe weather events. gao also argued that the federal government is not prepared to do with the impacts of climate change and recommend it would take a strategic look at them and start to prepare accordingly. i think this is a smart recommendation and it's essentially put it on our to-do list along with gao's updated progress report. certainly on this committee's list. acosta said it was responding to recovering from a hurricane such as sandy but the human and financial costs are so severe that we simply cannot afford to face this devastation over and over and over again. i will point out in this recovery we have seen states make promising steps towards addressing the issues gao has identified. in particular pleased to see the states of new york new jersey began to make plans to mitigate against future disasters. we know all too well an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. my grandmother would be pleased to hear me repeat those words today. in fact a few years ago the national institute of science

issued a report that included that for every dollar spent on various mitigation measures we can save $4 recovery costs. through mitigation we can get better results and save money and save lives. we must ensure that sound effective litigation policies are thoroughly incorporated into the recovery effort. this is especially important in the change drives the sea levels to rise and increases increase the severity and frequency of coastal storms. by working together we can become stronger by protecting ourselves and future storms. in doing so we can ignore can ignore what i believe and many experts believe may be the under lying cause of storms that hurricane sandy. finding a way to address climate change is not the topic of the year and today but to put in place for connections to reduce the impact. wade we make a mistake we didn't think about why we need to do to dress not just the symptoms of climate change but the core problem itself. i look forward to working with

all of you and the obama administration my colleagues on this critical task we have before us and i'm happy to return to -- for any comments. see i have to go to the floor to object to the lack of amendments that are being made available on the continuing resolution so i won't able to hear your testimony. i have looked at in my staff is thoroughly vetted and i have summaries of all of it and i will enter my statement to the earth. i just have to make a comment. i love tom carper but the tone of climate change and the reality of what we have actually seen and what the predictions have been, there is not a connection with that and as a scientist who has looked at the science we still have a long way to go to prove out what has been made as fact and senator carper statements in terms of climate change -- to the system to hearing about climate change. this is a thing about response to hurricane sandy and i look forward to coming back and offering questions.

i would also say i am very proud of fema's response so far. they have done a great job and also i would say i'm very thankful for the cooperation that you have offered the subcommittee as we have looked at and try to oversee it in real-time, to see that we are making great improvements. with that i would ask of my statement be entered into the record. >> before he leaves i just want to say i love tom coburn too. there we go. let me introduce our witnesses and senator johnson we will get into questions. the first witness craig fugate administrator of the agency and i want to thank you and the outstanding efforts you have made. and the other states that were a pitch. patch. mr. fugate began his career as a volunteer firefighter emergency

paramedic and finally a lieutenant of alachua county fire and rescue. in 2001 it became true for the florida division of emergency management held that position until he was confirmed as administrative fema in may of 2009. mr. fugate we are glad to see you and welcome to this hearing and thanks for your testimony. the second witness, where were you born? our second witness is the honorable shaun donovan secretary of the department of housing and urban development. mr. donovan has been secretary since january 2009 and is currently serving as the chair of the hurricane sandy rebuilding task force which is the topic we will discuss during this hearing. mr. donovan donovan served as deputy assistant secretary for multifamily housing at hud during the clinton administration and later served as commissioner of new york city's department of housing preservation and development. we thank you mr. secretary for joining us and we look forward

to your testimony. and no stranger to the united states and that's where she once once -- and was at the finance committee? it's great to see you again secretary darcy. assistant secretary for civil works of the u.s. department of army. ms. darcy became assistant secretary in august 2009. prior to -- i'm picking up a pattern here. prior to appointment ms. darcy had a long and distinguished careers as legislator. from 93 to 2000 she served as a professional staff member on the senate environment and public works committee which is in markup right now and she then moved on to the senate finance committee where i had just come from where she served on the senate environmental, senior departmental advisor and we thank you very much for your work and the work that is being done.

we will ask you to go at it and start your testimony and try to keep it five minutes. if you go a little beyond that it's okay. we will start voting around 11:15 and we want to get as much time as they can. mr. fugate please receive. >> thank you senator. hurricane sandy was essentially to disasters in one and it also covers a geographical area that today we today we know the heaviest impacts were in the jersey shore, new york city harbor area and in connecticut with peripheral impacts. before landfall we anticipated impacts from as far south as cape hatteras and the carolinas and as far west as west virginia which was under a blizzard warning all the way up to the central ohio valley including maine. to prepare for that we were able to utilize the authorities granted to fema when fema was authorized by the university reform act here that clearly stated that in the anticipation

of a major disaster we would not have to wait until the states were overwhelmed before requesting assistance. we had pre-stage equipment and supplies but sent teams to link up with the governor's teams to begin that crucial planning on what if the storm did hit and produced the impacts possible throughout the region. as the scale of the impact became more apparent that it was going to be focused on the landfall somewhere between new jersey and boston is allowed us to concentrate or resource teams on those impacts. s&a came ashore we dealt with the storm that produced a very significant storm surge probably greater than many people realize because of the nature of the storm and the fact that they thought hurricane irene was as bad as it would would get paid we so storm surge in areas that had not produce flooding and manhattan where the world trade center memorial and nine hospitals in the laurel per --

lower boroughs that were taken out of service because of damages. that damage was compoundecompounded by power outages. it's been estimated that 8.5 million customers were without power at some point hurricane -- during hurricane sandy. those were connections and not people. when you look at the region there was an excess of 25 million people being impacted somewhere at the power outages whether it was they didn't have power or affecting communications transit fuel and other issues. so is respond to this disaster using the tools we had we were able to focus on safety issues much of it done by the local responders augmented by homeland security grant dollars they received since 9/11 to build capabilities for search-and-rescue. we then supported immediate needs respond sheltering distribution of supplies and begin the process of starting

that initial recovery getting debris picked up in dealing with those amazed issues that were required to provide expedient temporary housing. some of the tools we learned from hurricane katrina is that in long-term housing impacts if the plan from the first day with the solutions where. nearly putting people up temporarily and hotels and motels were not the answers so that is again why we came up with a long-term recovery type of planning we do in a disaster recovery framework. ..

we are looking how do we ensure critical of her structures built back in a way that ensures survivability and resilience and future forms. we are looking at the issue here is that he should do we face and not for the future we cannot just merely built back to previous standards. again, it is cmd was a record-setting storm but not that could occur and we only build back to sandy, a stronger storm cannot do all of our work. we applied mitigation after katrina and the impact of hurricane isaac this year, parts of the committee that indicated

saw a storm surge greater than the story. because of the mitigation fire stations, schools, emergency operations centers rapid running and able to provide essential services during the phase of the disaster resulting in him and federal agencies to focus on recovery. we need to make sure were mitigating against threat, not just as history because every time it seems the term 100 year storm is used several times to describe events with even greater frequency. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very, very much. mr. secretary, please proceed. your entire statement will be in the record. >> chairman carper, thank you for the opportunity to testify regarding the ongoing effort. i share the task force established by president obama.

sandy had admitted back in new york and new jersey, rhode island, maryland and other states. based on the lessons learned from previous disasters, the president has secretary napolitano and i to develop a new approach disaster related recovery and rebuilding challenges him a national day. that led to the creation of the natural disaster framework released in 2011. administrator fugate mention it's important to bring a coordinated approach to recovery and rebuilding. as a result of the very first time we are fully implementing the recovery strategies and today we have 150 federal stuff on the ground in new york, new jersey and connecticut and working on long-term rebuilding. we know from past disasters paying for long-term rebuilding misspeak and even as response i give it a surrender way. we know the unusual scale caused

by sandy that communities have faced challenges in many challenges that cut across agency and state lines. for example, heart and energy infrastructure will require involvement from federal, state and local government in addition to the private sector across the region. in recognition, president obama created a task force to ensure there was cabinet level governmentwide and reach of reach of my coordination to help communities making decisions about long-term rebuilding. the task force is a short-term entity. the executive order calls to produce a comprehensive rebuilding strategy for august 2nd. falling to leash in the test scores for wine done an implementation will be carried out by the relevant regional support functions already in place. one goal in strategies to identify and share best practices by other communities and help communities apply

lessons to your rebuilding after his. an announcement we made but weak gad disaster funding to business owners can smirk quickly. the release of omar programs on base practices from other areas and local governments can modify and adapt to launch there on programs and small businesses and a citizens housing count going or where appropriate buyouts. giving communities programs means they don't have to reinvent a wheel on designing from scratch which ultimately means homeowners and businesses get more help quickly and at a lower cost. in addition to identifying opportunities, supporting local rebuilding affairs at the financial resources that only the federal government can provide is a key part of the federal role. federal agencies have begun making money from the disaster relief appropriations act available to state and local government in the region.

in addition to what administrator fugate mention to delegate the first strong shot of disaster funds totaling $5.4 billion i would add that hud indicated the fast if it's ever been in history. they've announced to billing the federal emergency funding and fema has released by like $9 billion to national insurance payments. the task force is to help supplement individual agencies and efforts to get anywhere at mean it by sharing lessons learned on how to use it most effectively and efficiently. a role is to facilitate monitoring of programs to ensure accountability and take measures to prevent waste and abuse. or working at the recovery accountability transparency for developing inspectors general in support of critical oversight mission agencies and alan e. to coordinate delivery of enhanced

plans. an additional monitor and share data about how dollars there's ran on a public website to give the public confidence dollars are spent as intended. the task force one packed to mitigate future risk storms. storms assigned tells us what greater intent and severity in the future. mitigation is sensible and good, offering a $4 return nhl invested by preventing future damages. only changes the focus on mitigation, the role of the task force is to ensure coordination of projects across the region so we can ensure benefits are duplicated in a separate database and said the most cost effective option. want to thank congressman members of the committee and in particular senator landrieu to cut red tape and and give us the flexibility to go back stronger and we are working to combine cdbg and other funds.

we no mitigation works as craig fugate described a receipt insanity as well. we look forward to work with the committee and others in congress and local partners to support rebuilding effort in a way that makes them stronger, more economically sustainable and better prepared to sandstorms a thank you for the opportunity to testify. i look forward to answering any questions you may have. >> thank you, secretary donovan. secretary darcy, please. >> everyone is talked about superstrong sandy 80 per mile when in all of this cause a great deal of devastation. flood damaged to infrastructure causing outages, damaging public housing unpaired residencies. it is clear corps of engineers projects mitigate flood damages to residents.

however, coastal features have resulted in increased risk and vulnerability. extreme weather events and impacts of climate change are likely to increase risk. the court has the authority comes a flood control and coastal emergency act for management duties in response to natural disasters including natural disaster preparedness come advanced measures, emergency operations before-and-after flood in rehabilitation and repair damage projects. the core response to disasters at the direction of fema under the stafford act. under the national response framework for coordinator for emergency support function number three of public works and engineering. fema mission are disaster relief fund. during and after hurricane sandy, the court responded to mission and provided more than 1000 highly trained technical

now in the 249 power battalion. today, fema payments for $350 million in new york, new jersey, massachusetts, delaware, pennsylvania, connecticut, west virginia and rhode island. at the arch first 2013, feed the stafford act include completion of 560 power assessment and installation of 211 generators of one point generating 55 kilowatts per hour. installation and operation of 162 pumps to 14 strategic sites identified by state or local authorities including the new york city subway tamils and the wastewater treatment plant resulted in removal of 478 million gallons of water. restoration of the hoboken terminal delivered

512 truckloads of drinking water to new york, new jersey, that of mania and west virginia and refurbished 115 transitional housing units and assessment images of coastal protection and closing of breaches in terriers in new york and new jersey. another mission assignment they can do news is the removal left by hurricane and he and i have an update on the removal information included in a complete statement for the hearing if they could do that right now so we can update numbers. as of this week from the city of new york spammer can 734,000 cubic yards of debris removed by the corps of engineers. on fire island, the number of private property debris removal assessments assigned to the court and the number completed has risen. the new total assigned as one does in 814 of which went as the 779 completed.

successive uppers is due to a dedicated team that included the quarter, navy, coast guard, department of transportation and the new york city transit system and many more. damage sufficient to what repair was reported for 19 federal hurricane protection projects within in the atlantic division. the court has approved information reports for 19 projects and engineering design has begun on each of projects. grocery damages outside the division for which we are continuing to do reports also prepared. they also sustained damages to core navigation projects. the disaster appropriations act of 2013 provide 5.35 for civil works programs. this included $3.46 billion of which was an 80% was to reduce flood risk in a way to support the long-term sustainability and

the community to reduce the economic cost and risk associated with large-scale flatness current events. the act requires all projects incorporate current science and engineering standards. the armies in the process of developing implementation for funding and project specific measures the corporate on an expedited evaluation that addresses resiliency, economics, risk as well as long-term sustainability. most of the court will enter into what are called project ridership agreements and ended with nonfederal sponsor and among other things an updated plan by the responsible nonfederal authorities. this approach will take a broad long-term approach to reducing vulnerability in a manner sustainable over time for the natural ecosystem, individuals

close community which they lived. thank you, mr. chairman. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you all for your testimonies. our committee jurisdiction includes border security. last month i was in with senator mccain and congressman michael maccoll from texas who chairs a committee in the house. joined another day by secretary napolitano. one of the things we wrestle with is how a measure success. isn't the number of folks we apprehend in the country legally? are there other measures of success? are making great progress and we still wrestle with how to bring measure success. administrator fugate, how do we

measure success and given that measure, how are we doing? >> would like to disasters and responses ever criteria and timeframe. we look at the first two hours the most critical life-saving and stabilization say do we have enough resources to get to people quickly to do rescues? with one person and security? we have emergency communications to allow first responders to get systems back up while providing the basic needs of the community in a short timeframe. i cannot be done with federal agencies, but what the private sector can do, what we do with other partners. the measures we look at specifically or can be physically get into the area? can we make sure it's safe to operate in? one person security concerns. committed to be entered in 24 to 48 hours to change the outcome?

and do we have supplies and capabilities to meet the most immediate need is the future of long-term disaster isn't occurring because of lack of response we can then begin the process of setting the stage for the next immediate things such as sheltering, debris to set the stage for recovery. look in on less responsive, we are achieving that by and large do not uniformly throughout the heavy impacted areas. a challenge they are is the dense population is something we have to look at that you can't just look at geography. you have to make sure you have the resources they are. using that as a standard rerecording cataloging homeland security. those grants and how much have we built, what is that response look like the urban search and rescue team response there has never been funded to do any

water rescue, even though they deployed most recently to numerous hurricanes involving water rescues. we began equipping through grants with water rescue equipment. six of those were able to augment state and local responders. >> how do we measure success and how are we doing? >> i want to focus on the immediate response. world focused on the longer-term recovery. as if that is measures in a set of measures less obvious and longer-term. clearly how quickly our homeowners getting back into homes? how quickly are small businesses up and running? for bradley, will the sure be open for business this summer in new jersey and long island? is there critical measures and i'd like to thank congress for

giving us in the supplemental for the first time the ability to set clear guidelines. 24 month timeline for what we would expect to be most of the other investments cdbg. to go through right now and try to set a consistent policy and how it implements those timeline from obligation. we are working to get data sharing agreements. frankly setting up the pipes to share that data in a single source city can track it, make it available to all of you into the ig to know whether we're making speedier progress than katrina and helping business and get back. the last thing this year focused on mitigation. in the long run, one of the most important measures of recovery

is to be saved money for next time we have a storm? themis analysis shall receive $4 for every dollar investment words done wisely and that is something where we gather data to make sure we understand where mitigation investments have paid for themselves and what they have it. >> how do we measure success? >> we can measure success and toupees on treadway speared one is the measurements given to us in the successes shot in the fact we were able to calm the resources we have not only within the army but within the defense department to hope that that mission. that's one way we measure success. another way to measure success is to look at projects we have

built in those projects, especially production project that provided risk reduction and if he flew the coast of new jersey you could see were there been a corps of engineers project and had not. the houses behind were still standing and caress not only do we learn from that, but we have to learn what didn't work and that's part of working with the task force and the canopus sustainability to make sure is part of any project rebuilding plan. >> thank you. before i yield to senator johnson was questions, i want to telegraph my next page. when others have a chance to ask i'm going to ask whether they stay at federal governments

involved in recovery has the authority and resources to make the recovery successful. i'll be asking any tools you need further toolboxes to help make this recovery successful. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i thank you overcoming and testifying. i have not been on the coastline. they have the same devastation comes with a two us questions about that. how much is within what proximity of the shoreline? can you give me some indication? >> senator, most images that occurred within the floodplain area, so in some cases damages with word box and some almost half a mile to a mild depending where you at. hit a barrier island and in the engravers flood upstream. most of the damage occurred

within the first half mile, generally where you saw the damage. because of the coastline is sure, someone into places that may bypass higher ground and impacted further upstream in the hudson river was flooding away from the short area were moved up the river. >> were to be safe to say 80% of 90% occurred within the floodplain? >> the bulk of the kids although in new jersey we should not have updated apps. there was flooding outside of that. this is part of the map showing us better resolution of what could happen. imports about the floodplain on the shows risk is 1% and in many areas it is greater than that based upon impacts and a strong hurricane of the 100 year floodplain would not identify risk and that's one thing secretary donovan and i work on to make good decisions on credit

olympus structure, not just the flood events, but when it impacts can be. >> just to give craig and his team single credit, one of the most port steps we've taken on the task orders has worked closely is to update flood maps with advisory maps. there are places where the hundred year flood plane has gone a lamer than 10 feet in places within the region. so when you describe the hundred year flood plane common is that the newer version compared to the old maps substantially outside in many places that original. one of the most important things craig has done is to accelerate this new flood maps out so now particularly on the short are

using more accurate measures of a 1000 year floodplain is, which is genetically different. >> which leads me to my next question. give me the effect of the flood plane map in terms of insurance rules. tell me what the 100 year flood plane does insurance cau3 plane does insurance cause, a responsible individual should do in response to 100 year flood maps. >> where we have updated maps, the requirement to participate if they have to adapt maps and then they have to drive construction based upon the snaps this elevation requirements and areas prohibited to build structures are you sort techniques. most common is to build one but about elevation. we saw numerous home where i live in connecticut that flooding in rebuilding had been elevated.

those homes are standing. homespun elevated to the new data were destroyed. it oftentimes means the difference. rapid recover in cleanup and restoration of power versus losing everything. so while it does not set a rate the worst possible scenarios there could still be damages by a march across the gold coast in the northeast for standards have been applied, storms that have hit show by and large the elevation requirements boozers housing tax base and host of people to return after the storm. does not go to the level of those destroyed causing not only lots of the home of the tax base. >> what about the ability to access insurance or cost of insurance. >> if you're not elevated above

the flood on the latest reauthorization of the national flood insurance program going to an actuarial base rate if they will build one put up a bit look at a discounted rate showing the reduced risk. moving forward to smart actuarially sound basis is going to price many people to the point have to make hard decisions about elevation are not being able to rebuild based upon insurance rates. >> do you have any estimate so far of how much the cost of the disaster is borne by private insurance versus state governments versus federal government? do you have some breakdown on that? >> given about flood damage will be federal and commercial industry has not chosen to a flood insurance for homeowners peer preponderance is borne by the taxpayer and the flood

insurance program. outside of that commercial entity that had insurance of even numbers done by the private sector. >> if i could i'd come to senator, one of the critical things about what craig has said is historically we've not had a coordinated response where we're using the same standards. typically which you have is the official flood maps, the old flood maps for new jersey and new york would govern investments would make post-disaster. but we are doing a straight use these new maps to ensure it matches fema uses the latest information across federal government were doing a. for example, enter first book written on this, we required any time mussina does rebuilding with 50%, you have to use these

new maps, even if they're not going to be official for the flood program within two years. we also look and insurance. fha provides insurance online dating. another area to set a consistent standard so even though we have been a permission, were not rebuilding an old standard that will cost us more with major investments but write it entities or by the federal local government. >> amount of my time, but i want to talk about how we basically incentivize people to build in areas that would give weight to once again in the american taxpayers on the hook on that. i will be my next question. thank you. >> thank you all for being here and i apologize for being absent during your testimony.

i want to just take a few comments on investigators that they are and it's been bipartisan in terms of what we look at. overall the initial response has been very positive. some of the criticisms we've heard from a local mayors and other people when you change the people there was make a transfer or hand off of what was done. it seems to be too many others to questions can't be answered by people on the ground have to wait for an error. the third thing is getting funds, most have to hire consultants to access funds. even though we've done a good initial response come under criticism by the people impact good are real and justifiable. i'd love to hear your response to the hand of process is even people in and out in why people on the ground can give people

impacted answers to their questions. >> the short answer is historic fema has never sat growing at a lecture to deploy people for long periods of time. we don't have a work force of that many people ready to go to that many impact to communities in disaster. we use a lot of work for us to do the initial stab and as we wrote to bring in reservists, we were able to backfill and that resulted in the first change out and that it's never been a good changeup. he did to the second point even more of a problem is complexity of programs have reached a point where part of what we were looking for in the recovery improvement that was better flexibility and tools to get more answers quicker. our goal is the radiance of the first time that a yes or no so local officials know what to do.

what we've come to the conclusion is we've been using a lot of reserved, brought on the disaster workforce who for a lot of the program worked very well. particularly as we update the program and often delayed response is because they had to go to the next level to get answers. based upon our knowledge is to recognize which provides a system full time, not permit were forced to get the consistency. there's areas are the people we bring in as many of them were well in a fast news. but as you point out, getting the reigning is the first time inconsistency in the end there has been an issue since i've been a state direct or local official. the only way to address that is to have the subject matter experts working full time as

temporary, not permanent workforce and have been the full-time and expertise. for in the process of reshaping the out or not to address the issue. >> when the hairy consulting to work through the maze, does the american taxpayer and the pin for the consultant? >> they may be using that to pay for the consultant. the answer is yes. >> senator, if i could just add one point related to this. some of this confusion comes out of public programs, but there's a lot of confusion homeowners have around the conflicting requirements for efforts of servicers of different types of log. for example, search may have a policy or pursued will only be released under this condition.

another would release proceeds under different conditions. fha is an important part of the mortgage market. fannie and freddie overseen a different nations be. but that together fannie, freddie and fha on how long for parents will be of foreclosures and what will be offering soothers consistent information. the more we can standardize, the more somebody in the field, whether it's a hud person or private configures the rule across the board as opposed to depending what side of the street you're on about under you had to get answers. >> but the eligibility

requirements had changed. they didn't change. the last disaster we had eligibility requirements are the same. why is this the right to get an answer if the eligibility requirements haven't changed? >> senator, i'm late to talk specifically with those issues are. there's two types of local officials based upon a conversation that hired contractors because the workload issues and that the process is really hundreds of thousands if not lives and dollars are not stats for hire consultants to provide staffing. it's when they hire consulting because the complexity of the program. it's a balance between the program without an doing or incurring increasing risk of wisdom crowd to maintain consistency but also eligibility and also comes back to those

communities that have a greater experience oftentimes hires testing. the issue is whether specifics they require contractors to answer questions on program eligibility and is this because they're not familiar and look for extensive because the program is so complex it requires that? the answer is a blind and i'm not going to tinnitus conflicts. >> i'm just a time. if you are in the sandy disaster area and you're not going to find out until july this year with the flood cleanup is, what are you supposed to do for your home? >> sandor, most of you guys are a elevation maps are being published as traditional data. the biggest change will be some kind of backwater areas for may reduce vulnerabilities to change

construction. the ovation requirements are significantly changing. the question is would receive a score higher in based upon our data, note. at last he may be less area. building to the levels would ensure you would not risk the preferred rate will also mitigate future storm damage. >> so, could a homeowner in a flood prone area take away from this hearing based on the maps today if they go to that, though have their premium not adjusted upward because they didn't following a flood zone map? >> as long as we have the most current advisory maps. >> two of these people know that? in other words, how do we get it going faster based on the limitation of not knowing what the requirements are?

>> one of the things working with fema is exactly what you're describing. i think it's one of the real successes that fema was able to accelerate vaccine created put them out publicly available across all the state of new jersey. governor christie has adopted a maps plus it's a fitting tires aid for rebuilding and there are meetings going on across the state but the task force and personnel to have considered ends with this new standard sorry. is it perfect? can we say there's not some revisions? know, obviously if they see back the weight cotton abroad we had to incorporate that. this is a vast improvement to what we've had before were these new maps are out very quickly. >> it's highly unlikely i'll ask you to raise it.

my question to both of you to scan all the rest of the areas based on what's up there now start rebuilding and assure them following but it's out there now are not going to get teen in their insurance? >> you may say that for every household? >> the answer is you cannot say that for every household. >> that creates a slowdown in the rebuilding and response to sam the because they'll not put at risk if they don't bother requirements. we had to have a statement that says if you're doing it based on what is out there now, we're not going going to come back. if we have to readjust these, we will. you've got to give them some certainty as to what the rules

are. do you understand my point? is a lot of people waiting to do things based on flood plane maps. do you disagree? >> i do not believe that this was holding people up. the more significant issues have been in making sure payments are getting to families and frankly being able to get supplemental funding once it was passed by congress are now moving quickly to get that out. i have not heard uncertainty. >> investigators have heard exactly that over and over and over again. maybe we need to drag those people to you so you can hear it. i'm way past my time. >> i think that's a very good

idea to make sure we follow them do that. we've created a famous subcommittee for focus is on fema and the merchant a response. fortunately we have the former mayor and reach, senator from alaska to chair the subcommittee and its ranking republican on her were delighted to find to take his son. in the future coming hearings will be done largely to set committee level. senator begich, you're recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i look forward to the opportunity to work on issues around emergency preparedness in my experience as a former mayor kiss the immigrant experience dealing with fema and other issues. first i want to say, mr. fugate, thank you for one provision in the appropriation package allows for the recognized tribes to

directly request from the emergency. we are hearing positive things from folks in alaska about opportunity to recognize and not the first state bureaucracy to be frank with you a couple disasters have taken the state to darnall to get an answer and the people on the ground were feeling pain. thank you for having that in the package. i knew you're working through the great victory process now. what is your timetable to get them into play quakes the reason i say this is where moving it toward disaster time. this is if there's a disaster between now and october is when we see these things occurring. what is your time table when regulations and giving consultation to the tribes to know how this will work?

>> thanks to the house for providing that provision. regarding implemented it. aced upon the statutory change, we are currently using provisions to determine that. they spent two declarations are at issue. one for the cherokee indians and one for the navajo nation. we are entering into a process for a development that know what to do and i the opportunity to make their request. >> sere dharna simultaneously basically? >> the consideration is based on the current also not every service is to manage that unless we record is self determination for the president of the capability to manage a disaster. if not they can still go with the state. it is not predetermined that self-determination to determine how they would request disaster

assistance. >> thank you for that. one of the things we did we recognize that no disrespect, we did not want to do programs where we have homeland security whatever agent t. and storing food and products and so forth. it might've been one of the first after katrina an agreement with companies like home depot and stamps and others their stock house. we have an agreement for the first 72 hours certain skus with the products are not able to be purchased if they can determine a where people come in, buy everything and resell. we created a system that types of product we needed in a case of emergency would be locked up for 72 hours until he gave been

located in nevada. we think it's been very successful cost is not. we didn't have to put a on it or any name. tell me how you incorporate or how you will see and i'll say this because our school district decided to get banned some of them with death on every sclafani, which to me is a total waste. a lot of money to rotate the image tori doesn't make sense but in the huge warehouse logistics than any agency will ever have. so tell me how you partner with the private sector and ideas like this, are you exploring them? >> this was actually something experienced in florida. we found ourselves can be gained with the or something they did better than us. the goal was to quit competing and look at how to bring them onto the team and complement with their scalps. we currently have a business

operation sinner with major corporations. part of what we track his or her stores are open. we noticed there is such about lake fulks supply. we focus on areas for storage would not be a 10 and work with the industry was supply-chain issues occur. experience tells us some things make sense to durable goods tonight ends of the hardest things to get into an area. the private sector needs a seat at the table. much of the planning has been government century and it out of the private sector is already doing. >> you don't have to do it now. maybe we can have a further discussion later, but i think to get information on those relationships and how they're doing. the school district who we had

three stands, for home depots and more concentration of oak supply in anchorage, but now are doing these things to get a grip from somebody. i want to understand more so if you could prepare something or at least whatever you have. because of time limitations here, secretary donovan on the thank you for being here. always good to see you. let me ask you. you're doing the tough scores on cmd. under that, will you two red ideas that will say here's the list of structural changes we need, maybe in fema or whatever agency. is that part of the code that task force other than making sure it all works out? >> absolutely. we are required to deliver it by

august 2nd. one of the pieces of the report would include recommend nation for how to improve longer-term recovery going forward. that might include structural changes. it also will likely changes. it also will likely include other recommendations to give one example. the inability to get gasoline was a major problem after the storm. other things we can with federal level, but also model programs that states or localities could adapt to situations like that. it would be internal to the federal government we would be looking at. >> i think senator coburn was talking about it, but to expand on one of the issues of how long it takes from one point to venture to the system and in how they every services delivered to them, monetary or otherwise.

we look at issues and how that -- gas is one example. >> one example we party down. the small business administration has the authority to provide loan to small businesses. what was typically found in mississippi and other places is a set of businesses for a loan does not work because of the loss for some temporary period of time. so if someone provides grants to states and locals to set up hope to small businesses. one of the things we've done is take all the data we get from folks who apply for were not eligible for loans. we provide information to the states and locals so they don't have to go back and pay businesses and have to go through paperwork again they've done the first time.

they benefit to the agencies and will get money to businesses faster and lower costs. >> i know you've mentioned a peer i'm not sure to mention the opening statement, but the issue about fema dollars to racing after some things destroyed, but the core and i feel so bad, darcy, know it's asking you questions. >> don't feel badly. >> on one hand, the court might say to keep rebuilding the same location come you're going to have the same problem. but fema has limitations. it just seems fair: the big picture is disaster relief, don't repeat the mistake. they be systematically or structurally. will you look at the broader picture because it's the most frustrating thing to hear. i hate hearing it.

>> this drove us crazy in the longer-term rebuilding of katrina and other areas. let me take an example of exactly which are talking about. one of the things congress did was give more authority to see gorgeous rebuild what was there, but the funding being a will necessarily pay for more than the cost to just rebuild. so what we're going to see but fema projects is that cdbg will supplement other from resobg wil supplement other from resources for local governments make a choice, and that we should build back stronger. it's going to cost by many animal pay for itself through mitigation. but we're going to have to plan does sources in ways that the real problem in the past. he gave its authority not to require you to click environmental. makes perfect sense. we're now looking at other ways

to basically streamline using different pots of money for the same project to make it as efficient and quick as possible and most models will be useful in dandy but also future disasters who have a template to bring us together in a seamless os possible. >> see that come you didn't have to answer the question. that's not bad. >> i'll be very anxious and as we move forward as your work first are prepas you h your work first are preparing recommend nations will have some further discussion about the next step to make sure it's more seamless than less complicated for the agencies but also recipients on the frame and. thank you all very much. >> let me just say to senator begich come you're always share and reimpose ranking senator.

they got some good investigative work is that where live. i would just urge that we could exchange of information between your staff in the work done by his investigators. >> senator levin, welcome. >> thank you, mr. chairman. let me welcome witnesses as well. hurricane cmd incredibly enacted some damage not only where it is the most visible on the east coast but damage in the great lakes as well. destructive forces were so huge that they cause damage to breakwaters and created a silting problem in the great lakes. we already hand created a silting problem in the great lakes. we already had been massive damage on the great lakes. a year and a disaster situation because of drought and low water levels. new record lows hitting more

than two feet below average before seeing this problem but the celts and the harbors. this was a drought problem that hurricane sandy was on top of. lake superior is a foot below the long-term average. the army corps predicts all the levels will remain below average and this is a huge problem for those getting in challenge is and those that are unable now to sail. we got apparently seven other great lakes ships come a so-called lakers it doesn't belong to will not be able to sail this summer. the damage of sandy is relevant to us compared to the other damage sande created, they seem small. if you are trying to do commerce and those harbors can function, it's a big deal for you.

secretary darcy, we got an e-mail this morning saying of the 18 million estimated damage at 5 million is going to be directed to projects damaged as a result of hurricane cmd. today we got enough correctly? senator, i sat than for its me today would be providing $18 million. >> i know it was 18 to 19 altogether. that's very good news in the thank you for that. the other question -- i guess i have another minute or two. go to the question -- the question of whether or not the stafford act allows for support were drought is the cause of the

problem. so i guess mr. fugate, i ask you that question. >> i haven't been a state that.with raskin now being the administrator of fema, would not necessarily warrant a declaration. you have to look at consequences. since mr. economic, the stafford act is not addressed causes and effects uninsured losses. when we've looked at this, is there an emergency such as a failure for a water system and a required supplemental assistance for drinking water forces causing physical damage or other losses that are not economic in nature but damage due to the drought that would warrant a declaration based on the state impacts. we think this thing we see most often is the system of drought is wildfires. the drought impacted out and we

provide elements of the framework to support current recovery. the stafford act itself doesn't address what is the underlying issue which is economic impacts of drought versus physical damage is uninsured and may require additional taxpayer supported. >> now the department of agriculture, staffware comes? >> jurisdiction is based on the dress is a big leap. as other programs that have roles in reporting that for water management corps of engineers. using that framework, we knew caesar having to read through the acronyms the federal government of federal issues. unless we have physical losses are uninsured, we think the primary role may be an emergency

declaration if you had a critical water system failed economic losses are not addressing the act. thank you, all. >> a couple questions for the whole panel. start with you, secretary darcy. we talked about sufficient resources of the federal estate and local governments in order to make recovery successful. i want to ask you to think about the tools we need in your toolbox. it could be money. people could be regulatory relief from the regulations. what other tools do you need to get closer to the success with? >> i think we've got a pretty good toolbox. however, oftentimes in the recovery, there needs to be additional flexibility. we do however in the response as

opposed the recovery often have situations where we can use -- we've planned for a recovery response in some instances can do things quicker than we would ordinarily. a recovery, one of the things we're fine aid in response to this is through the work of the task orders. the more we can court made our outskirts, whether it's the cdbg grant to a community where there's a storm damage reduction project, i think the mechanism secretary donovan tilapia task force and the things that would help us recover more quickly. >> i just felt on that network to recognize who is still very much in the middle of this and really for the first time ever fully implementing the natural

disaster recovery framework. what to make sure we come back this summer when issuing the court with a fuller answer to that. there's lots of things we don't yet know. having said that, one of the most important things that congress did is to make improvements in the community development block grant program with this supplemental flexibility, for example, not duplicate environmentalists will make it easier to use with other funds. however, i do think going beyond that