poor. he, of course, remained in his commitment to the environment and had a very, very active life, mostly in maine in his beloved house in kennebunkport and was a contributor right up to his death in 1996. ed muskie is a true american hero, and there's no way that my poor words or anybody else's can really capture his career and the impact he made. i think perhaps the closest i could come is to recall sir christopher rend's epitaph which is on his tomb in st. paul's cathedral, and on the tomb it says, "if you would see his memorial, look around you." if you would see ed muskie's memorial, look around you. take a deep breath.

experience our great rivers, experience the environment that we now have in this country that we treasure and is so much a part of who we are across the country and in, of course, the state of maine. ed muskie was a great man. he was a great member of this body, and it's an honor for me -- to say it's an honor is a gross understatement -- to be standing today in his seat, the seat that he held for those important years from 1958 to 1980 and served our country so, so well. ed muskie is a man who belongs to the ages, who we all miss, who made such a difference in all of our lives. thank you, mr. president. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

mr. king: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the

quorum call be rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from maine. mr. king: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. king: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session and the commerce committee be discharged from further consideration of p.n.-1059, that the nomination be confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table with no intervening action or debate, that no further motions be in order to the nomination, that any related statements be printed in the record, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action, and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. king: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. 2183 introduced earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 2183, a bill entitled the united states international programming to ukraine and neighboring regions.

the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. king: i ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. king: i ask unanimous consent that the judiciary committee be discharged from further consideration and the senate now proceed to s. res. 395. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 395, designating the month of april 2014 as military and veterans caregiver month. the presiding officer: without objection the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. king: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. king: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the appointment at the desk appear

separately in the reported as if made by the chair. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. king: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it adjourn until 2:00 p.m. monday, march 31, 2014, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. that following any leader remarks the senate proceed to the consideration of h.r. 4302 under the previous order, and that at 5:00 p.m. the senate proceed to executive session to consider the owens nomination with the time until 5:30 equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. king: there will be at least two roll call votes on monday at 5:30 p.m. if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order following the

remarks of senator murkowski of alaska. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. ms. murkowski: mr. president, first, i thank my friend from maine and appreciate our conversations that we have had in this past week. he has taken a journey to the north that most of us only dream about, but he is engaged on issues that i care deeply about as they relate to the arctic. i know that wasn't in the discussion that you were speaking to earlier, but i just wanted to note while my friend from maine was still here on the floor that i look forward to working on these issues of great importance not only to my state but truly to our entire nation

and arctic nation. mr. president, i've come to this floor this evening to speak very briefly about the physical security of our nation's power grid, a very important subject, and this is a subject that recent stories in the "wall street journal" about a coordinated attack on the california metcalf substation that happened last april has drawn really considerable attention to. and while those stories about that attack highlighted potential vulnerabilities within the system, my principal focus here today will be to highlight not only the safeguards that are already in place to protect the nation's public power system but already to announce a step that i believe is now necessary to prevent the undue release of sensitive nonpublic information. first and foremost, and i think this is important for people to

recognize, it is important to remember during the metcal incident that the pg & e system did not lose power. in fact, it was an incident that many didn't know had taken place until months after because there was no loss of power. i think that this fact emphasizes the grid's resiliency and the importance of building redundancy into the bulk power system. as usual, the electric industry has learned from and responded to, appropriately responded to the california incident. at the end of last year the departments of energy and homeland security along with the north american electric reliability corporation, this is nerc, along with ferc, the federal energy regulatory commission, and the f.b.i. began a cross-country tour of ten cities in order to brief utility

operators and local law enforcement on the lessons that were learned from metcaf. government officials discussed mitigation strategies and meeting participants were able to develop some pretty important relationships between first responders and the industry. in fact, as a result of a 2005 energy policy act's mandatory requirements, the electric industry has invested significant resources to address both physical and cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities. through partnerships with various federal agencies the industry is focusing keenly on preparation, prevention, response and recovery. for example, nerc holds yearly security conferences and a grid exercise which tests and prepares industry on physical and cybersecurity event.

yet former ferc chairman willinghoff was quoted in the washington journal calling the incident the most significant incident involving domestic terrorism involving a grid that has ever occurred. mr. president, in my view comments such as these are sensational. depending on the topic they can be reckless. although the topic of security warrants discussion and debate, we have to be prudent about information for the public's fear. many government leaders are privy to confidential and sensitive information that if not treated carefully could provide a road map to terrorists about our vulnerabilities. at a minimum, at a minimum

government officials have a duty to safeguard information that they learn in their official capacity. a story that appeared in the "wall street journal" on march 13 was, i believe, shocking because it included sensitive information about the nation's energy infrastructure that the newspaper said came from documents that were created at ferc. and although the "wall street journal" did not name specific facilities at risk, it did detail the geographic regions and the number of facilities that if simultaneously disabled could cause serious harm, and the article in that march 13 article claimed the potential for a national blackout. i want to commend the ferc chair, cheryl lafleur, for her

statement regarding the publication for this information. i thank commissioner tony clark as well for his statement about the matter. i think it is fortunate that our current ferc commissioners are an independent lot. i understand that the commission is looking into this matter, including the question of how sensitive internal ferc documents made their way into a very high-profile news article. and i would urge that the ferc be very diligent in this, truly leave no stone unturned. i have grave questions about the irresponsible release of nonpublic information that unduly pinpoints potential vulnerabilities of our nation's grid. if this conduct is not already illegal, i have suggested that it should be. the source of the leaked information appears to be

someone with access to highly sensitive, narrowly distributed ferc documents. releasing this sensitive information for publication has put the nation potentially at greater risk and potentially endangered lives, including those of the many good people who are faithfully working every day to maintain and to protect the grid. in order to learn what has happened here and to determine how better to safeguard critical information as steps are being taken to make the grid less vulnerable, my colleague, the chairman of the energy committee, senator landrieu, and i have written to the inspector general of the department of energy, whose oversight includes the ferc. it is our understanding that the i.g. has already begun an inquiry into this matter. we've asked him to conclude his inquiry as soon as possible. and we've also asked for his

immediate assurance that if the inquiry must ripen into an investigation, that he will -- as we have every confidence that he would -- but follow the information that he learns wherever it leads. we are eager to receive recommendations to improve the safeguards of keeping sensitive information from disclosure. we've also asked the i.g. to look into the obligations of current and former ferc commissioners and employees with respect to nonpublic information. i would certainly hope that the inspector general's inquiry leads to the identification of the person or persons who provided this sensitive nonpublic information to the media, but even if it does not, even if we learn that the leak of this information could have been accomplished without the violation of any disclosure restrictions, we will consider introducing legislation to make sure that in the future the

disclosure of nonpublic information about our energy infrastructure that puts our nation at risk is a violation of federal law. we must remember that the possibility of a physical attack that disables key parts of the grid has always been a risk. again, in this instance, though, with the metcalf instance, our system worked, no power was lost. therefore, i urge a measured approach when evaluating our next steps in response to metcalf. erecting barriers at every transmission substation and surveillance of every inch of transmission is -- is just not feasible. i'm concerned that these types of measures will potentially cost billions of dollars with little impact. there must always be -- also be a balance between the measures related to physical security and the costs that would likely be

passed on -- through to consumers. on march 7 the ferc used the grid lee re-liability of congress established in the 2005 energy policy direct by directing nerc to establish standards addressing physical vulnerabilities to better protect our nation's power grid. nerc has 90 days to develop its proposed standards through a collaborative process. the proposed standard will be reviewed independently before it's submitted to the ferc. mr. president, our energy policy act standards are foundational. constant information sharing between government and industry coupled with alerts for rapid response are also key tools for dealing with the changing state of security. as policymakers, we must include physical security as a key issue in our decisions. we must always take -- also take measured steps to protect

the grid, but we shouldn't sensationalize the threat. i commend nerc and ferc for starting the standard-setting process and i would urge all the participants to strike this balance between measures related to physical security and costs and benefits for electric consumers -- customers and the broader public as a whole. again, i thank the chairman of the energy committee for her willingness to join me on this letter which, again, i feel is very important as we begin this review through the inspector general. i know that you, mr. president, as a valued member of the energy committee are very keenly aware of these issues when we talk about our grid reliability, threats to not only the physical security of our infrastructure

but most certainly the cybersecurity threats that we face as well. so i appreciate the indulgence of the chair this evening and with that i would suggest the absence of a quorum -- with that i would yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until senate stands adjourned until

for the department of homeland security at which time secretary johnson testified. the subcommittee will continue that oversight to date with a more in-depth review of the president's request for the federal emergency management agency known as fema. the president's fiscal year 2015 budget requests over $10 billion for programs and operations that fema. this is at 3% increase from fiscal year 2014. it is important in these difficult fiscal times that fema can fulfill its mission mile at the same time be a good steward of taxpayer money. the need to ensure our nation is prepared come equipped to prepare for a response to, and mitigating its disasters and ensure that our first responders have the training, tools, and resources needed georgia continue to do their important work. the minister, i'm interested in hearing more today about how you

propose to allocate resources to sustain the current missions and the strategic priorities will focus on. for the third year in a row the budget request proposes some significant major changes within the state and local programs account, consolidating a number of homeland security grant programs into a new national prepared this grant program. in tea gp, and i'm pleased that fema has finally submitted a legislative proposal with this year's request. as our subcommittee continues to review the proposal, we do have quite a few questions about it. i am interested in learning more an hour will be implemented. i have questions about the to funding bonds, sustainment and competitive and have these funds will be allocated. i also have questions about and concern with the proposed elimination of the 25 percent set aside for law enforcement errors and prevention activities .

moving forward, we need to remember the purpose of these grants as detailed in the 9/11 act were prevented preparing for protecting against responding tax of terrorism. i hope you will be able to provide is of greater clarity on this proposal on the other questions as we have related to the proposal. i look forward to working with my fellow subcommittee and full committee members and the many stakeholder groups as we continue to review and consider this proposal. this time i ask unanimous consent to answer one letter from a number of stakeholder groups, including the u.s. conference of mayors, the international association of fire chiefs, the major cities chief and the international association of emergency managers regarding the ndp proposal. without objection so ordered.

i also ask unanimous consent to encircle letter from the national association of realtors with respect to the homeowner flood insurance affordability act. without objection so ordered. amateur is to see that the department took advantage of the discussion provided by congress for fiscal year 2014 homeland security grant program and expanded the number of cities eligible for the urban areas security initiative. after falling out the list in 2013 indianapolis is once again an eligible urban area. this city of indianapolis as many to many top-notch events including arab coming indianapolis 500 that requires our public safety officials have proper training, equipment, and strategic planning. previous funding has played a vital role in ensuring our first responders a prepared for these events. as we continue to recover from disasters such as super storm sandy we must also evaluate how we are working to become more resilient and many of the damage

caused by the storms. we also must ensure that we're always looking for ways to rebuild faster, stronger, and more efficiently. so i was a bit surprised to see that the president's budget request again proposes to eliminate the pre disaster mitigation program. however, and it is my understanding that through the opportunity, growth, and security initiative bills of $400 million would be allocated to a competitive grant program that would be administered through the pre disaster mitigation program. i would like to hear a bit more about the rationale behind this change. and finally, the use of social media has been a focus of this subcommittee and is become a new reality for our first responders and survivors communicate before, during command after a disaster. the recent explosion in east harlem, the boston marathon bombings which happened about a year ago and superstar and sandy hedges some examples of how citizens are turning to facebook and twitter for informational. during to subcommittee hearings

held this past year we heard from numerous takeovers including the private sector on this new reality. two weeks ago i along with a ranking member of pain, vice chairman paul losel and mr. swallow introduced a bill to authorize the apartments virtual social media working group. an interested in learning more about what the man is doing to incorporate social media into the prepared this response and recovery missions. with that i am pleased to welcome administrator few be here today, and i look forward to your testimony and as always, thank you for your service. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from new jersey for any opening statement in may after. >> thank you and good morning. i would like to thank chairwoman brooks for holding this hearing in giving the subcommittee the opportunity to learn more about the fy15 kutcher request for a federal emergency management agency. earlier this month secretary johnson testified before the

full committee on the fy15 budget submission for the department of homeland security. members of this panel raised a litany of concerns ranging from how future budget gaps will affect operations to what the resources are being allocated effectively to enhance security. there was one topic, however, that generated significant bipartisan interest. venus proposal to consolidate 18 distinct homeland security grants into one. this is not famous first attempt at a wide scale consolidation of these programs. it is the third attempt. in the past when members asked about potential changes and funding under the consolidation proposal feel less stressed that it was not focused on the specifics of which cities receive funding. instead it was concerned about building national capability. so before we go down that road

for the third time, i want to be clear about where members on this panel, the democratic senator coming from. the head tax of september 11th 2001 shook america to its core. prior to 9/11 we only saw disasters and terms of natural disasters, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes. mother nature can be vicious, but over the years thanks to investments in disaster preparedness and recovery it is an enemy that we can anticipate. the attacks of september 11th in contrast we did not see coming. on like a natural disaster we did not know at least initially when it would be over. despite our military strength, our intelligence, resources, and the first responder technologies , americans learned

that day that we are vulnerable to terrorism. unfortunately last year the boston marathon bombing brought the unpredictable nature of terrorism and the focus once again. americans have come to understand about the might of our military will not stop terrorists from trying to attack our streets. fragments of intelligence only tell the full story if the information is shared with the right people. i represent newark, new jersey. i have seen firsthand the death and destruction caused by terrorist attacks and natural disasters. both the 9/11 attacks and hurricane sandy were deadly, heartbreaking, causing significant economic damage. the nature of terrorism demands a very different preparedness, response, and mitigation approach than approaching a storm or other natural disaster.

new jersey's first responders were some of the first to attend to the aftermath of 9/11 and then again were called to respond following hurricane sandy. depending on the type of disaster what is asked about first responders is vastly different. as king in the firefighter had what is the demand in response to a traditional fire is vastly different than what is required to respond to a blaze caused by an act of terrorism or biological toxins that may have been released or booby traps that may have been laid. in recognition of the difference and the need to build terrorism prepared in response capabilities congress established the homeland security grant program. as we begin our discussion on grant consolidation today you will find that the concerns

expressed by your proposal are fundamental. what is at stake here goes far beyond parochial considerations about who gets the money. it is about how we take the lessons learned from 9/11 to make our communities more secure in the absence of a dedicated indiscrete terrorism prepared is in response grant program which is exactly what would occur under your consolidation proposal, how can we be assured that the funds we appropriate will be used to achieve in upper ability, hardin and protect critical infrastructure and address the other vulnerabilities that we first identified by the 9/11 commission. i want to thank administrator few gate for being here today. i look forward to testimony. >> other members of the subcommittee are reminded that opening statements may be

submitted for the record. we are pleased to welcome the administrator for the subcommittee. mr. fugate was appointed by president obama to serve as the minister of the federal emergency management agency and was confirmed by the united states senate on may 13th, 2009. prior to coming to fema mr. mr. fugate served as director of the florida division of emergency management, a position he held for a year's. mr. fugate began his marriages to have emergency management career as a volunteer firefighter, emergency paramedics and finally as a lieutenant with the alaska county fire rescue . welcome, administrator. your entire written statement will appear in the record. we ask that you summarize your testimony. you are now being recognized and look into for the subcommittee. >> thank you, madam chair, members, ranking members, you have my written testimony. i want to go to leave as much time for questions.

i want to take on the national prepared as grants. i think it is not our intention to divert them away from terrorism. it is not our intention to divert or set aside or exclude any group from that. if anything, it is following the constitution of the united states. and i -- i know that there are a lot of groups and congress ultimately has the authority to authorize disaster, our constitution is divided powers between federal and state to give the state the primary responsibilities responding to domestic emergencies including terrorist acts and the consequences of those tax. only governor in got the national guard, only the governor can request assistance from the federal government. to exclude the governor from the planning process an allegation of bonds literally goes around our constitution which sets of their responsibilities for the states.

also goes around state constitution some. as a former local, state, and now federal have worked all levels of government and can tell you that the original funding streams were not separated out by jurisdictions, although there were in different parts of money and be because of the complaints and concerns of many local officials who felt the money was not reaching them, congress made the decision to begin funding cities specifically. that probably makes sense as states where cities are the primary capability in response to disasters. my state, florida, counties are often better. we have a situation rehab funds going the smaller municipalities to set with a large accounting a larger capabilities of the overall risk. because these funds did not reflect the state constitution's the who and how authorities distribute some states are very much for one very powerful. local officials would have the

primary overall responsibility for direction. in other cases it is primarily at the state level. again, this is not an intense to bypass or eliminate any group from funding, but the better recognition of the central role that the states would have when disasters, including terrorist attacks but also making sure it is in the uprising language and trying to get to prioritizing those nine areas and preserving funding for that but given the state's better discretion and ensuring the funding is based upon the overall issues of not jurisdiction by jurisdiction. probably when you look at the address reface no one jurisdiction with a red the capability to respond to that at. live to bring resources from across the nation. looking at the various threats some of which are to aerospace,

some of which are natural hazards we started adding up the numbers, casualties, fatalities and injuries, search and rescue him immediate recovery needs to read and looking at that we began identifying critical capabilities in gaps. part of this was to address the funding not only hoping that by jurisdiction by jurisdiction it adds up to national capability but actually driving some of the beer risks and threats as an overall national response. how the bill that capability and direct that funding? says grant funding based upon the position between the states. the other has to be competitive so that we can see in some areas of the country where maybe sponsorship by one state or one community to provide resources to area verses each jurisdiction and others a lot of concerns about the distribution of funds to on distributions about the jurisdiction getting what we need, also there's not a lot of trust out there.

that also concerns me because in these types of large-scale events if we can agree upon our responsibilities working together as a team how is that work in a real disaster that exceeds the jurisdictions capability and requires all of our capabilities, not just the local jurisdiction whether there are natural, terrorists, or technological. they need to look at all the resources to build capability. my recommendation looks at it as a nation and bases upon the structures of our states, not taking away from the importance of local responders, local jurisdictions, those risks but recognizing that when it does happen it will be the governor's press irresponsibility on that state to accord and all the response of the federal government. that is what is driving this request. thank you, madam chair.

>> inky, administrator. for your testimony and the recognize myself for five minutes for questions beekeeping along the lines of what you just talked about with respect to the national prepared this grant program and a change of what you're proposing, i think one of the things that we remain concerned about and i'm not certain that it's clear from what has been considered thus far has to do with the funding of the jurisdictions. the proposal and the legislative texts are still not clear enough for us to understand as to how high risk areas will be funded. obviously we do believe in risk-based funding. so, you know, i appreciate the same amounts of funding should not be distributed equally across the country but that there are high risk areas. so if authorized would funding under the in pg be set aside with applications submitted to

the state as the current practice, or will it apply to the states in which they are located with the state's determining the amount of funding that they will receive? >> it would be the urban areas applying to the state with the criteria that we build into the operas in language. rather than setting aside specific funding would make those as part of the requirements that the state would have to find. so what we would do is still identified in the direct has an analysis those urban areas and the types of activities and capabilities of they would need to build in an area. it would give the state the ability to make those allegations. we wanted to go to building this more as a collaborative so we have the local jurisdictions in the state working together to commodities final allocations. >> i guess i'm just a little bit confused as to the communities.

you expanded it once again as i sit in my opening remarks to 39 communities. are you saying that those of the 39 communities that will be eligible to apply to their states and others would not be? >> it would be based upon the case of some of the expansions that we looked at this year for the secretary. last year we were captured 25. that cap -- one of those concerns as some of the proximity to some communities to because of large tourist venues or proximity to strategic military installations that did not always factor into some of the of the risks of were significant enough to look at. when you take my home state of florida we an unidentified every location as a military presence, but if you look at the area between the air force base where we are currently getting the f35 apparent to make port, jackson, none of these are necessarily on the urban security area list but there are areas the state can look at if there are concerns

about the threat predicted look at that verses is looking in certain urban areas there are already designated. >> moving on to another issue, the ndp proposal seeks to change the focus of grants from terrorism to all hazards. now, these programs were in large part established in response to the 9/11 attacks. i personally don't believe the terrorist threat to the united states has diminished significantly since 9/11. there are a lot of untapped -- incredible dangers and terrorist threats that we still face. what is the rationale for changing these grants all hazards will know we have so many natural disasters. how is it that we would be able to keep our focus on terrorism threats? this. >> the prevention piece that nothing changes as much. the homeland security grants

always allow for all hazards. we want to focus on are consequences. the need for search rescue teams and the reason mudslide or the search and rescue teams that were deployed in new jersey, it's more of our recognition that we need to build capability against potential consequences, not just for a specific one threat. there are elements within that that are very germane to terrorism such as fusion centers and other activities. again, this is where we think the prioritizing that in a grand guide assures that funding. but it allows a selected consequences. mississippi got slammed with tornadoes several years ago. many communities were literally wiped off the face of the map. it was the ability to deploy resources bill with common security grants that allow the initial response to establish public safety. again, the consequences of the event. so it isn't just about the

hazards. it's about looking at the various consequences and that these are applicable across a variety of events. industrial accidents producing a similar number of burned and traumatized patients. the capability to respond to that in the aftermath is the consequence piece of it. it doesn't detract them from the prevention piece. >> the see that my time is up. and at santa ranking member pain , for five minutes of questions. >> thank you, madam chair. director fugate, we hear what you're saying, but i have repeatedly been told that the goal of your grant consolidation proposal is to improve oversight and foster better collaboration. and not convinced that achieving these important goals will achieve the fundamental change in the program. as the chairwoman read into the

record stakeholders including the national league of cities, national association of counties and international association of firefighters to name a few have come up with the list of principles that, you know, in my view are very constructive guideposts for any grand reform effort. there are transparencies, and local involvement of flexibility and accountability, local funding, terrorism prevention and been centers for research -- regionalization. i open to working with this committee in the stakeholders camino, on the way that the homeland grant program could be refined to not only meet your goals but also to that year to the principles outlined the stakeholder groups. >> absolutely. again we are basing this upon looking and some of the large-scale threats this country faces. was the worst day in america?

if somehow an improvised nuclear devices ever detonated in a city it would require the full capabilities of only of the local jurisdictions in the state of them back, not only the federal government but then not impacted jurisdictions says. we have to look at this again, the national gaps based upon the most significant threats we face will recognize in his jurisdiction as unique responsibilities. i also have to go back to when we buy best governors, said that the imbalance of dealing directly three jurisdictions, not involving the governors in a process, what i am willing to work to reach all of the concerns as best we can and building national capability. back. >> is ben some concerns about. your experiences in florida. we're going to point out my experience in new jersey. we suffered through hurricane sandy.

there were still issues about those funds that we allocated being handled by our governor and whether he is using them, you know, sometimes in political waves. so in new jersey we have concerns with that because we have seen we still have communities that are still suffering have your -- a year later after congress. a lot of it doesn't bother you, but that's our concern. we are concerned about giving that power to certain people when we have seen the funds of not necessarily cat and where they should be for use in the proper manner. >> i understand. i also understand the constitution was not built around the individuals but the entire system which is what i'm proposing, looking at the constitutional structure, division, federal, state

responsible is the governor's staff. >> they originally came to the states. jurisdictions were concerned that there were not getting the recognition and the funding directly. they went to congress, congress began funding increase in the urban security areas. the urban security areas came after the original homeland security funding. it was not the origination. came about jurisdictions coming to you looking to get funding more directly than bypassing the state's. so they were given that capability. >> all right. i see my time is up. i yield back. >> the chair now recognizes the vice chair of the committee, the gentleman from mississippi, mr. mr. plaza. >> thank you, madam, administrator, thank you for being here today. i'm going to change the subject a little bit flat topic that is

on my mind and that of many communities around the nation is let insurance relief. i know you were in front of the senate panel, i believe last year and we were discussing the affordability issues with 2012. you called on congress to help you with that. we responded, and we did in a bipartisan, bicameral way. just this past friday the president signed into law the homeowner flood insurance affordability act. the key word is affordability. we think we have given that you. we all know bear water saddle lot of unintended consequences. our number one priority for many members of congress from the coastal areas has been to make sure flood insurance remains available and affordable to all homeowners the needed to be the law that was just recently signed by the president's, it was paid for, puts in at, continues to keep that on the path the solvency but does so with compassionate management which is extremely important.

let me move quickly. i know this law was just signed this past friday, but has fema began to plan for the implementation of this law? >> yes, sir. you were looking at language prior to the senate actually taking it out. looking at that time friends that you gave us to do refunds. also how to now change the rate increases. i believe there are certain pieces of language, it shall not exceed 18%. going back to that. you also have the fee structure. that fee structure will have to now go back to write your own so that we set a point at which they will begin collecting that. that collection, was that data is said it will not be collected immediately. it will be collected when they renew. once we set that we would see a year before everybody has paid a fee as their renewing there policies. we already began looking at this and are currently working on the language.

again, as you can understand we have to go look at this as implementation with a two biggest parties right now to another recoveries previously paid fees and their insurance claims or not insurance plans but insurance payments that will be retroactively reimbursed and setting up for the ride your own implementation rules and the timeframe for the new increases and for the fee structure. >> we need specific funding to employment this law, as you do. >> again, we are still looking at what the cost will be and whether not it will be within that program with those additional fees spill. one of our challenges is because the right your own receives a fee as a percentage. the refund, we still have not addressed the percentage of fees they collected as far as having to pay any of that back.

>> now congress added a provision also to provide immediate relief to the home buyers and eliminate the home sales trigger. under the assumption provision buyers of property will be allowed to us in the policies in the current rates of sellers to prevent home buyers from seeing drastic flood insurance premium increases. fema works and implementing the rest of the new law. now, we understand we hope that news -- moves extremely swiftly. a story a wet blanket on real estate markets across the nation. it's causing homeowners grief. again, the law was just signed friday. do you know when guns will be sent out to write your own? >> congressman, would have to get back to you. since this will essentially be grandfathering a firm grip to buy preferred restaurant new home buyer will have to make sure that they have clear direction so when a transaction takes place -- and this will be for the mortgage industry, where you have the requirement to have

flood insurance that they're getting a preferred rate that was originally with the original seller. we will have to basically do both the current rate and make sure the right around in the administrations have that transfer to a new buyer. we still have some questions were working out on the best way to do that and the training and time frames to get that implemented, but we will report back to you. >> thank you. i want to continue to urge you to act swiftly on this. you touched on the refunds are quick. in the meantime while all of this is being implemented and worked out, is there any advice that you can give us to the -- that we can provide our constituents of they can be getting answers to their questions? >> i think probably it's important to educate them that these new grandfather rates are transferable because it's going to take some time to get that out there. at think you can help people advocate that the law has

changed. if there still not getting what they need work back with us because we may have to handle some of the most immediate ones. >> my time has expired. i yield back. >> thank you. >> thank you. at this time i would recognize the gentleman from new york for five minutes. >> thank you, madam chair. the administrator, the urban areas security initiative program originally started the 64 communities and was then reduced to 25 and then bump back up to 39. the criteria that was built into the legislation which was intended to determine eligibility is something which they don't desire. they're put into the program based on the independent analysis that says you have high impact targets. the region that i represent has

the second busiest in northern border crossing between the united states and canada. the power project produces the largest a lot of electricity in all of new york state. niagara falls to my destination of tens of millions of people every year from every country in the world. it has toronto an international city, home to the sex that were in a al qaeda training camp in afghanistan and several other justifications for including the buffalo and niagara region. in the last edition of inspire magazine which is a magazine that is distributed throughout the world to encourage home grown terrorism not only in the united states but throughout the world, that magazine and identifies the niagara region as being vulnerable to terrorist attacks. france won distinction the we're

proud of. i would think it homeland security would be very concerned about the specific reference because our terrorism experts say it's a threat in and of itself. the magazine has intended to promote, encourage spiring geodesy. what is the department of homeland security response for excluding a community that never has to be included in this program in the first place and then was excluded and now this new information which is very, very alarming for anybody the lives in that community and should be for everybody in this administration that is responsible for that program. again, we could find jurisdiction by jurisdiction, but the capabilities respond as a nation and have to be looked at. there are other jurisdictions to also have compelling reasons to think or justify them being on

the list. it is a finite capability and it is prioritized. the secretary reviews that, makes the decision based upon all threats, not critical infrastructure, intelligence but looks at everything. there is no one single factor. goes into that and is based upon an overall look at the nation and the communities. some of being on that list does not mean we don't agree, but there are finite resources, and the secretary would have to prioritize which of those cities made that list. because there was not a limitation that expand the list. >> then me back my time. the new information, one region in the entire nation that has been identified by a magazine and is intended to inspire geodesy activity against communities, attacks on the homeland, a tax on communities that have already been deemed eligible. again, the region did not

request to be, part of the program. it was brought into the program based on independent criteria that was established by homeland security officials. this new informations, homeland security official who is put in place, takes responsibility to the project homeland, does the reference of one community in this nation can't inspire magazine that originated out of al qaeda in the arabian peninsula that promotes violence jihad against the homeland specific communities, this new definition cause concern on your part as of homeland security official for this nation? >> i'm concerned about a lot of threats and terrorism. >> in not answering the question >> the threats we look at have to be looked at -- >> you run the program, i represented community. the community i represent was identified in inspire magazine which every terrorism expert recognizes as a threat in and of

itself. you're telling me about my your jurisdiction. what do i say to my constituency, sir? >> that we find the nation. the state receives additional funds. refined urban areas, like these threats across the nation. is not to say that the jurisdiction does not have to mention or may be specifically identified, but it does say that the funding decisions are based on this states, asian, threat based and we try to look at all the information to make decisions about where we're going to find them will we can find. >> this new intimation play into of re-evaluation of communities that are included? >> potentially can depending upon how the intimation, intelligence analysis is looking upon this based upon other information that is not public. verify what's in this spirit we have seen mismatches between what inspire will state and what intelligence services will find

out. we tried to look at not only the public and available information but the threat streams to make sure we are addressing these threats. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> the chair now recognizes the gentleman from south carolina for five minutes. >> thank you, madame chairwoman. let me say up front that i'm a big fan, but the nine previous role so. tremendously admire your work. and legitimately there will always be differences of opinion i would say as much as you can key a bias that maintains this larger notion of constitutionally enshrined federalism to my ticket can be important. one thing in my pastor was that there are a host of different perspectives based on shared roofie. the idea of having an overlay and the state level so that one can look at competing demands

and competing needs i think is essential to maximizing our effectiveness both from the standpoint of security in from the standpoint of watching out for the taxpayer. i guess i have two quick questions. one is on flood insurance going back to my colleague's questions, i think there was a real skepticism back home on the coast because if you're concerned that if you're naturally conceptacles where it might be coming from. the idea of saying show me the money or give me the money, then we will show you exactly how the flood maps will fallout, exactly where the assumptions are because, as you know, as a world of difference in ultimately damaging by extension the charges at a premium above whether are not storms are going to hit at high tide turn the tide, how many maidstone's to mammon and landfalls, all the different variables. is there a place or when will there be a place by which folks back home whether on the gulf

coast of the east coast my appeal to look at some of those assumptions in state from the welcome i agree or disagree. therefore i can't, you know, sort of come further up to speed of what i like don't like with regard to flood insurance. that's one. >> there's a hyper awareness because of the increases proposed. but there is no such thing as a famous love map. .. increases under biggert-waters but there is no such thing as a fema flood map. fema provides the funding criteria but ultimately the local governments are part of that process and they adopt those maps by ordinance. they have to enforce building codes based on those maps so there's a hyperawareness. we need to make sure the public is aware because wendy's maps were originally proposed that is one public, could come in and that we will use the best available data. see if i might understood but the way folks are telling what

they felt back home to me was that the cart was before the horse. they were not sure from actuarial standpoint. where will they be you will get a snapshot of that? >> the actuarial basis was looking at base flood elevation. we knew the risk was increasing almost exponentially for every 4 feet that a drop down. example we ensure maximum $350,000 structure. if you are at base flood elevation that's about a 3200-dollar policy and if you are a foot above it's a 600-dollar policy. if you are 4 feet below its a 72-dollar so particularly in coastal carolina as we saw with hurricane hugo we can have a storm surge of 25 to 30 feet. that is what the risk is so you can see if you have homes up on stilts sitting 12, 13, 15 feet

in the air you have serious problems. if you haven't been elevated you can expect the flood insurance premiums to be extme hig >> is there a public place that folks might look for that information? >> we are putting that information at fema.gov and trying to put informatiinformati on about how the increases are going to affect it and that is change with this change laws so we will be doing the calculations but again if you are at base flood elevation you basically are getting a neutral rates. if you are one foot above you are getting the preferred rates and if you are building at code you are good. the question is i spend you update the maps what happens if you felt the previous codes and new data says that's not high enough for now you get slapped with these increases but you did what you thought you were supposed to do. again i appreciate congress trying to work this affordability issue. this was a concern we had previously. >> i've got 26 seconds and 25

now. when will that affordability study be coming out? >> based on the data is going to be a couple your process working with the researchers to build that data and look at affordability and look at what those impacts are. >> i will come back with another question later. >> the chair now recognizes the gentlelady from new york ms. clarke for five minutes. >> thank you very much madam chair and two ranking member payne and they thank you honorable fugate for being here this morning. i have a question with respect to the hurricane sandy after report. clearly hurricane sandy which has devastated the east coast and we are still trying to recover, we have seen fema really respond well. we have improved since hurricane katrina but we recognize that there was an after report and there is room for improvement.

could you give us a sense of what steps fema is taking to address the corrective actions identified in the sandy after action reports of july 2013? >> the key one and this is crossing a lot of different disasters is to make sure we are providing consistent information to the grantee of the states in the subgrantee's about the requirement to follow federal purchasing guidelines and contracting requirements. this has been a systemic issue across all disasters where when it is in clear we oftentimes have given bad information on guidelines for contracting and the i.t. finds you weren't compliant with federal so we are trying to provide on the front finding that information. another example was we did pilot programs and you gave us a lot more flexibility with the sandy improvement act in addition to the supplemental funds so we are in the process that we hope will spill of things including only

reimbursing actual cost we can do an estimate on the front end and fully funded project using the authority it gave us and there are very large projects both in new york and new jersey that are taking advantage of that so as we learn those lessons hopefully we can speed up recovery process while maintaining responsibility to the taxpayers. >> high hope you also give guidance in that special area where subcontracting is concerned that the same subcontracting should be applied. >> this was one of the findings from the ig there were federal requirements from procurement and federal that would apply to federal subcontractors as well as prime. what we are doing is putting people on the front and so when grantees are working these projects and subgrantee's we make sure they understand all the federal procurement laws that is applicable. if you are taking federal dollars it's no longer just state or local procurement law. you have to have deep and were procurement law which would

address these issues. >> outstanding. he spoke about grants and i want to turn your attention around the fema preparedness grant proposal. can you provide specific examples of changes fema made to address concerns raised by stakeholders with this consolidation? >> there are several but we can provide more information. one of the very specifics is because we want to look at consolidation the 9/11 act refers to specific government entities. that would potentially leave out certain port and transit groups that don't fall into the definition so we have included in the authorizing language to expand that definition. that's only recently that the language in there. we are not trying to open up the universe to anybody but there were specific groups of previously received homeland security funding that by consolidating this would be limited. we cannot get a consolidated grant by appropriations without

authorization where we put inslee of groups left out. >> okay very well. in closing, the question about mpg. the draft authorizing legislation included with the budget request it would build a sustained core capability identified in the national preparedness goal but unfortunately firefighting would he a key element of any response to a terrorist attack not just to identify firing -- firefighting as its core capabilities but with empg program eliminate funding for fire departments that historic day have received uasi and s. h. sgp funds? >> no maam. in fact two stand-alone grants they that were tied to specifically 9/11 grants for fire department staffing and equipment are not touched. again this is not for the primary firefighting. this is the enhancement of the firefighting particularly search-and-rescue hazmat teams. to focus on those things that

are not the day-to-day responsibility store operations of the fire department so this is the doesn't speak to the date today in response. it speaks to the enhancement of those teams for common security threats. >> would the still -- would firefighters still be eligible for uasi funds? >> yes. >> very well. thank you and i you bet and in chair. >> the chair with recognizes the ranking member. >> madam president animus consent of the gentlewoman from texas ms. jackson-lee he preprinted -- permitted to participate in today's hearing. >> without objection so order. at this time i will send it over to the gentlelady from texas ms. jackson-lee for five minutes. >> thank you madam chair and thank you ranking member for your courtesies into my colleagues as well. thank you for your courtesies.

mr. fugate it's good to see you again. thank you very much. i have a series of questions and this is a very important subcommittee but coming from texas we have seen you often and we have seen fema often. we certainly thank them for their service. i want to start out with your mission which is to support our citizens and first responders as a nation working together to build sustain and improve capabilities so my questions will follow along those lines. presently, houston area is suffering a nonnoticed devastating oil spill. i don't know whether or not though we have requested that a request for a disaster status and i would ask whether you have received anything from the state of texas regarding the oil spill that is in the galveston houston

area of? >> no congresswoman. i know that the coast guard and epa had federal response for the cleanup. we will have region six reach out. i have not heard anything from the state of texas about a declaration request that i know the coast guard and the epa are coordinating a request to the cleanup cleanup. >> as i left it was creeping into local communities so i would ask of region six could contact my office as well. and to that point i noticed i would assume the oil spill would be under the no notice event and its $1 billion. do you use all of your no notice funding for the last fiscal year and is a carryover or is this going to be enough? >> usually with oil spill's there are responsible parties and it would depend upon if there underinsured or uncovered losses. that would have to be determined but because you are fully funding the disaster refund we are still able to maintain response to those events as well

as the ongoing previous disasters. >> you feel you are in good shape? is that what you are saying? >> yes, congressman. there was asa struggle to have the money and many times we would have to stop work on the disasters. with the budget stabilization agreement and fully funding the disaster relief fund congress has enabled fema to respond to our existing previous disasters as well as maintain the capability for no notice catastrophic disaster response. >> i just want to continue to monitor this issue of the oil spill. i know there is the reimbursement reimbursement of those who are responsible but i'm also looking at the immediacy of the response so that is why would like to be brief. let me publicly madam chair and ranking member think the u.s. coast guard as they have done a stupendous job. i am certainly advocating for their full funding. quickly to the flood insurance

borders reform as you will note legislatilegislati on was just passed. in times that site at the fema director in my town reworking the flood maps because they literally destroyed whole communities in terms of the value of their homes. are you all including now immediately -- bunnell was dealing with the insurance aspect of it but those that legislation, the reform that was passed impact how you are doing the flood maps? >> there are key provisions in biggert-waters that requires to have a technical advisory committee and provide more validation of the methodology so as we are implementing this in going through that we will be dividing the timeframes the part of this was to have outside validation of the mapping criteria and also more clarity in the appeal process for communities to use when they are challenging maps. >> can we as members of congress reach out when our communities en bloc in large numbers so that we can make sure, because when i

had this issue in my district we did have the fema director and he was frankly very helpful in saying this is not the interpretation. do we still have that latitude to be able to do so? >> even if their regional staffer through headquartheadquart ers staff is always available to you. >> i want to move to does make mention of the tragedy in washington state in the hope that you will be heading there for others. i know that obviously it's not not -- disaster look like it's growing and i want to thank the first responders and join with my colleagues from washington state. my colleague from new york asked about firefighters. we are presently having just i think devastating brownouts in the state of texas. i think you come from a firefighter community in terms of not having fire stations, equipment and personnel out on the streets. could we enhance our homeland

security response because our homeland security responsible user being diminished. we have the energy industry they're so what kind of branch could be utilized that would legally fit within utilizing more firefighters in the needs that we have in our community? >> i will have staff brief you on the programs that you have to that are currently funded by congress the aig and the safer grants one which refers to funding personnel during these types of crises and the other is that equipment. as far as washington state will the region has been engaged in the governor made a verbal request and the president granted it. we have support teams on site but it's also the legacy of the homeland security grant washington state resources built with the homeland security grants that other programs. >> but you are standing ready for anything in as much as i

understand they are still in the search-and-rescue mode. >> it's a very dangerous situation. the best way to describe the mudslide is it's like wickstandt wickstandt -- quicksand. it's almost an impossible task to get to some of the areas so there are many responders standing by but in some places they can get into the areas because it's too unstable and too dangerous. >> let me thank you very much. these are ongoing issues to both of you and thank you so very much for allowing me this time and with that i yield back. >> thank you so much for your reminder to all of us about the dangers not only coast guard in response to this incredible dangerous situation at the mudslides are colleagues from washington brought to the floor yesterday and several lives have been lost so we are praying for the safety of the first responders. we want to thank you for that. we are beginning our second round of questioning.

i'm going to the day for my five minutes of questioning in turn it over to the vice chair the general fund from mississippi for a second round of questions for five minutes. >> thank you again madam chair. administrator is a florida native you know how important our community. sorry to locusts and tourists -- locals and tourists who visit our area. there are several counties that were devastated by hurricane katrina in 2006. any of our peers along the gulf coast were destroyed and had to be repaired. for example here's an county repaired its peers following post-katrina and gustav. approval processes impaired guidelines in including waiting on it environmental impact studies before constructing the peer. in august 2012 hurricane isaac destroyed many the piers again and fema declared the costa disaster area. since that time harrison county the city of gulfport and the city of long beach have petition for relief funds to rebuild

peers. fema has denied the request because it insisted on putting these municipality through additional environmental impact studies even though the same peers were subjected to environment olympic studies completed only a few years earlier. the work involves existing structures. we are not talking about completely rebuilding the piers are the structures so to me in south mississippi to me this is a prime example of bureaucratic red tape at its worst. so is it really necessary to repeat them are mental impact study on a structure that had a study completed only a few years earlier? >> congressman i would have to look into that. all i can play was the general criteria you use when you are over 50% destroyed we have to follow the law which requires an environment to review. however we have been working and one of the directions the president has given us is to speed that process up so we are not going to concurrent lives

and each federal agency has a slice of that. we are trying to improve that process but again i will have to go back and look. generally when we look at something over 50% we consider that not peers and that may be triggering it but i will have to get the details for you. >> please do because we are already entering into the spring season and it would be nice be able to begin construction have a completed before the summer months. again if we get an environmental review a few years ago and we are not completely rebuilding the structures but just repairing them it would make sense to the taxpayer why waste additional funds? >> we have been pushing more and more of to take these types of projects and move them into a concurrence where it's not the current form of review. i will have to find out what's triggering this on these piers though. >> going back to flood insurance and this is something i was thinking about this morning. you know more and more communities are going to be mapped into the floodplains

which is of course making people much more zero where of the possibility their rates are increasing. the mudslides in washington. homeowners insurance does not cover mudslides. is it true that you need flood insurance premium to cover that? >> i would need to defer back. i think it depends the bone if you are talking about shifting soils are a mudflow which would be caused by flooding. i would have to go back and see see if there's there is a difference but in general when you have flooding that is producing mudflows that causes that damage it's because of flood damage. >> a local agent i was talking to this morning did mention that. real quick ickert waters authorize monthly installments and fema has not implemented this. now that h.r. 3370 a law signed this friday emphasizes congress wants homeowners to be on the spread their premiums across the 12 lines. how quickly will fema implements

monthly installment payments for premiums? >> again i would just as soon do it as quick as i can but i have to work through the process of collecting and paying the premiums back in the program so i need to get back to congress on why does it take us longer? you actually have to have a correction process. one of the concerns has always been they only buy it for the months of hurricane season will buy it for the rest of the year. if they don't pay all their payments we are going to go back and seek damages to get that money back but i think it's really one of these issues that i look at and say why can't we get the installment program? i need to get you more information. >> to follow up on my colleague from the east coast he mentioned mapping concerns and i'm going to jump to the narrative and just go to the heart of my question. what efforts has fema taken to ensure accurate mapping information is being used? >> we are not doing a very good job. we are $27 billion in the polls

as someone has the flood risk that we didn't map bright. >> well we are going to have additional questions for the record. thank you sir. >> thank you. i now turn it over to the ranking member of the committee is to payne for five minutes. >> thank you madam chair. i believe it was stated before but it's just such a concern. for the past three years congress has rebuffed famous budget request to consolidate programs in a grant preparedness or graham in favor of maintaining programs in repaired repaired -- preparedness and response to terrorism. and last committee hearing on the boston marathon bombings the boston police commission stated that without the grant funding response would have been much less comprehensive than it was in without the exercise supported through uasi funding

there would have been more people who had died in these attacks and that is a quote. so what do you say to the people who are concerned that without the discrete program targeting specific capabilities that there would be in a russian of terrorism preparedness and response? >> again to be respectful congressman notwithstanding the proposal three years in a row and i may be hardheaded i have never failed to implement what congress has authorizeauthorized and funded to the letter of the law. what this really goes back to is not talking about not funding the city of austin that giving greater oversight and structures to the state tube boston and including them in that process. this is not about taking money away from jurisdictions but more giving visibility to the state so they have the overall responsibility for those events and that response to ensure that all of the issues of the state are funded and again when you

look at how we are driving the threat and hazard information is going to point to the cities but it does give the governor and the governor's team more oversight responsibilities and hopefully by increasing competitiveness building more capability in parts of the country where it's lacking. >> what if the governor doesn't see things the way that you see them where you have funded the cities because what you have determined and the governor doesn't necessarily agree with you? >> that's the great debate of our country sir and congress finds itself in disagreement with governors and you have the authority of the keeper of the purse to fund these funding decisions. i have to look at this from the standpoint that unlike other other programs want to disaster triggers a certain level it falls under the state constitution and the powers that originated in that constitution is unique to every state. to bypass that and i have seen

it in mismatches in how a state operates and how the funding comes down and unlike a lot of other programs in this case it is the authorities vested in the state constitution that drive how a state is built, how they are going to prevent that. some states for greater emphasis on the state law enforcement for local law enforcement. you have what i call the boston sin the new york so the world that are so large that they are special category by themselvethemselve s but they all originate from the state constitution. oftentimes we work around what we don't like about that but in a disaster i have to work the system and support the system to the best of my ability because that's the foundation of our response. fema does not walk in and take charge. we respond to the request of the governor and support the governor's response. also understand we have to look at not just jurisdiction by jurisdiction but across the nation and understand we may not

get hit when we expect that we have the capability to respond outside of these areas. we look at boston and we look at new york is huge resources that may be called upon to respond elsewhere in this country. >> okay. in new jersey newark specifically with their uasi grant they worked well with the state and keith isaacs has reached back and gone to the counties and brought them into the process. it is working backwards and we are just not sure if it came in new jersey situation if it would work back the other way? that is our problem i guess. what about the terrorism capabilities that are a major concern with these grants and consolidation? >> again we put emphasis on things that are prevention, things like fusion centers. a lot of this information and looking at how you get the best

intelligence how do you look at these threats, there is no specific set aside aside them unfortunate because quite honestly when he do a 25% set aside that's all they are going to get and if you limit to 25% that is all they will get. if you don't put a cap on it may be more money on the front end that we have to look at this based on threats and driving this group grants guidance. again we are more than willing to work with the committee and authorizing language to drive this those outcomes so that the state implements the desires of congress reflecting the needs of the local communities. again are asked is to go back to a system that goes through consolidation so we can look at this nationally not just jurisdiction only. >> but what if this was less? >> that's always going to be a potential. that's a call this day would have to make in the state would be accountable to their citizens and taxpayers and voters. it's their constitution, it's their state. >> thank you madam chair.

i will yield back. >> the chair recognizes the chairman from south carolina mr. sanford for five minutes. >> just to delve in a little bit deeper if you are to look at the overall budget or look specifically at fema you pick your category but if you were to pick the two areas that are the biggest waste and duplication that jump out at you, what would they be? >> this will make me real popular. beach renourishment. what mother nader takes away we have to put back and we spend a lot of money on sand. it's one of our largest costs. it's primarily an economic issue and i understand that but again in budget constrained times we have to make decisions about willard teaches really tied to safety or are they tied to commerce? understand the arguments on both sides but again i think we have to look at that. the other thing is the responding to disasters because

we have the systems built around the reimbursement of actual costs. i think we can show significant savings because congress gave us the ability and when you were the governor we would look at every dollar spent authorizing. you have got to rebuild the fire station let's figure out what it's going to cost and give you the money to build a fire station versus waiting until you do every project involving that reimbursement. how you look at the overhead of our cause and look at some things and make decisions about it would be nice to do a lot of things but florida beaches are a key part of our economy. .. it's economic but it's not national security and not public safety and less it's protecting the critical infrastructure. it's more economic. knowing the storms come in and

take out a lot of these beach improvements and we come back next year faced with the same situation. >> so their re-nourishment programs on miami beach? >> i think it's primarily an economic assistant at the state of florida thinks it's important have to fund it. >> the sand overhead can we get more specific in terms of a specific area? an area that jumps out at you when you look at the federal state and overlaid with regard to security maps and i remember seeing up close if you look at these contractor logins efficiency is not one driver at the time of the storm but there is a lot of profit margin built into some of these contractor numbers. is there efficiency you have seen us bar is best practice? >> congressman he remembered the system was actually bladed to the contractors to pick up

debris versus your own folks because you couldn't get straight timeout of it. we have the sandy improvement at that is gone. we did more during the tornadoes in oklahoma the summer where instead of forcing jurisdictions to use contractors because they will be fully reimbursed for that we recognized a lot of times they will be faster and cheaper to pick up debris. right now south carolina if they choose to they can use a contractor or they can use their own crews and we will not penalize them for using what we would call straight time for folks at our already paid for. >> can i interject madam chairwoman? this is a big point because the degree of money wasted in that particular program was particularly egregious that had to have the labor force and capacity to work on it you get no reimbursement and you say

let's just do the contractors of the other guys are idling while the monies being spent at a contractor level. >> we currently implemented that in the sandy recovery act. i think we will be able to make a good case to make this permanent. it's not to say we don't need contractors but we shouldn't take the existing workforce out of the picture because we have a robust as you can only pay overtime when this is oftentimes the fastest way to get the debris up in the most cost-effective. >> is their particular stovepipe in the federal state overlay that doesn't work as well as you would like to see? >> i hearken back to the environmental review piece about. as the president pointed out we cannot suspend law but we can certainly look at do we have to have every agency did each piece of this sequentially or can we do concurrent and come to consensus on some things we set aside.

when we do it, do it so that it does one for everybody not each agency and if you remember his governor sometimes you may be using hud dollars engineering dollars and we require separate fees for the same project. we are past that and we are working to make sure that whatever one of these agencies does it first it's for all the federal dollars going to the project so we are not repeating these reviews over and over again with different requirements. >> my time has expired. >> i want to thank you for that question. now we turn it over to the gentleman from new york mr. higgins for five minutes of questions. thank you. [inaudible] >> have a national flood insurance program policies but not a single one has been shown

new data demonstrating their continued need to be in a high-risk flood zone. oftentimes communities are told by fema that if they undertake certain flood mitigation projects the widening of channels, the design of new bridges, perhaps fewer peers, the raising of bridges and other flood mitigation initiatives that those communities, there is less of a risk of catastrophic flooding and thus they come out of a high-risk area thus reducing the premiums that they have to pay. so i know that remapping is a big part of this program so could you give us the status as to the remapping and when it would be finished and what steps the mice taking to ensure the inaccuracy in categorizing high-risk flood zones? >> for the record i would like to respond in writing. i will tell you something the communities can do that exist

right now that's a community rating system. the community rating system is something they can apply for now and get discounts based on a lot of things they do already maintaining drainage ditches providing community information. the community rating system as a scale of one through 10. just moving from a 10 to a nine will give you a 5% across-the-board discount for all including your high-risk. not only is the remapping and i wanted to get the information about your community but the community rating services and other programs that you can use outside of remapping to start applying discounts for things you can do to reduce flood risk stormwater management plans and maintenance records and start getting discounts for businesses and their residential insurance policies. >> that is very helpful. now can we get back to the buffalo area security issue? i yield back. thank you sir.

>> at this time i turn it over to ms. clarke from the state of new york for five minutes of questions. >> thank you very much madam chair. under the lan security grant program the law allows states to pass through 80% of the funding to locals. some have indicated they have had little opportunity for input and sometimes little opportunity to consent to state use of funds. how would npgp address this issue to ensure that local governments truly have use of the 80% pass-through to apply to their specific needs? >> again it's going to be based upon working through the states and i understand -- is here and i would refer back to the ranking member as well as the chair to work with you with authorizing language to drive those kinds of outcomes but i think again you have to look at the standpoint of in some states state agencies provide a lot of the capabilities of the 80/20 rule works against those states where the greater resource was a

state agency but because we are capped at 80% locally you couldn't fund them. we will work with the committee but i would recommend and we have to recognize their 50 states in the territories and commonwealth of puerto rico that is not always going to be the same. understand in the northeast their large city structures and why it is different but again we have one program we are trying to make fit back to the structures of the state's role and ensure your desire to make sure funding gets to specific issues and communities based on threats. >> it's really challenging and i think we do have to acknowledge the nuances because new york city and new york state is unique and it's very challenging given whatever dynamics may be happening in the state at a given time to have that not have the defensibility to be able to address the unique needs of that particular locality. >> the structure and florida

local jurisdictions had pure review. the peer review process was the most effective way. swan to say -- one thing to say do we really need that in our response and will we have gaps so there are mechanisms that some states use successfully by discipline and the peer review process that drives better outcomes than any single arbitrator for one person making these decisions. >> would you say that pair review process should be given some sort of rating that enables it to have those differences mediated? >> again this would be an opportunity to work with the committee and the authorizing language to drive back of my experience has been when i have an expert sitting at the table i have the fire chiefs of police chiefs sheriff's public health officials support folks and they're also looking at all the threats making these decisions as a group and having to come to

consent on those it eliminates any one agency bias or any one discipline bias. .. >> it build capabilities. again, is my bias and experience the says when you do that you can build a more resilient nation in of the more than happy to work with the community to try that outcome. >> madam chair, i yield back the

balance of my time. the chair now recognizes the gentle lady from texas for five minutes. >> i think the chair and the ranking member again. i just have one inquiry. we just had that discussion some months back about constables. we were talking about making sure that they could be a recipient of grants. may not be able to answer it now, but can we please collaborate again. we had some discussions on language. the law enforcement structure in the state of texas. i have advocated for them being able to be eligible for grants during the hard to see times. >> thank you for that reminder. our staff will begin to work with your staff on that. i would actually ask administrator fugate, as he talks about the importance of recognizing state and local jurisdictions, i wonder whether or not you would like to opine on the position of constable's well we have you here.

>> madam chair, this goes back to the states. every state has unique structures that oftentimes by passing a state structure we don't recognize. i think it would be better to give the state greater discretion to recognize constable's as part of their plan and make eligible funding. and we define things we oftentimes don't take into account that states have different provisions, different authorities and powers in different parts of the country. when you do these things, part of the challenge of how we make sure that we have not excluded halas' state operates under the constitution which would be one more example of giving greater flexibility so that states can deal with unique positions by their loss -- laws that would not necessarily be in every state. >> have look for to working with the gentle lady from texas to make sure what the constable's responsibilities are. >> thank you so much for the courtesy. what i would say is in the

instance of texas ag would just say that it is say mistake and it was probably a -- something forgotten without review. our constable's continuing to exercise in homeland security around the state. just want to get that on the record. sometimes the federal government needs to sort of give a little guidance to states when they might have not thought of the utilization. afford to collaborating. perris me back to the decision tech consolidate the state and local grants prepared his progress by consolidating targeted prepared as grant programs into a single pot. then you prepared this grant program without requesting sufficient levels of funding which is my belief that there is not sufficient levels of funding but i would like as a look at the long list, my perception is

that a sophisticated entities will overcome those who are much smaller and less sophisticated, i.e. i don't see the citizens who are matching with the urban areas security initiative and the supply for that. it's very important. making it diverse, making it into neighborhoods. i am curious to my chances security grants matched against the nonprofit security grants program. the other issue is which i agree is when we have sort of organized these different elements, and i know it makes it convenient, but common security is designed after 9/11. it was about the focus on terrorism. i think this is a mistake. it smudges or it confuses or is it creates smoke and mirrors not intentionally. this is not suggesting the intent of it. but from those to opine that got

this big pot and the professions and the fish and individuals this certainly overcome some very good idea of some local volunteer fire fighters.

and competitive grants. citizen core funding has not been separated even though it is an all-out expense. the example when i was in new york city. very robust communities that should respond to around and again, support to their homeland and art @booktv security grants that have haunted those types of programs. the last couple of years through the appropriations we have been window down into three broad categories of which there is eligible funding. >> do you think there is sufficient emphasis on the terrorism aspect under that structure? >> i do. we also have to look at all of the threats and the capability. is it to my again, recognition that although we are funding primarily those threats against a nation that it is designed to be dual use and that, again, some of the natural hazards

actually have national significance that go beyond the traditional staff declaration and reimbursement. there are several not -- natural hazards, a hurricane coming into the houston ship channel which not only has damages to the hurricane but i submit will threaten and disrupt our refinery. implications far beyond the damage to the hurricane. those of the reasons why. can produce threats to the country as great as some of the terrorist threats. we have to look at what those responses would require. >> thank you, madam chair. i yield back and will continue to inquire. thank you. >> thank you for those questions and for the continued focus. administrative you get a mention dry my opening remarks, during my opening remarks i indicated that we have had to social be hearings in the subcommittee. we clouds those questions for

this hearing during the weekly chat on twitter. some of the chat members among the majority of which have extensive experience using social media for emergency management purposes actually have input into some of our questions and appreciate their insight. one concern that we have heard and i certainly hear it and see it as i talk with communities, local communities. i just visited each of the eight counties. visit with local and elected officials and appointed officials. one concern we have is that many local emergency management offices sometimes are one-person shops. they often lack the communication skills or the resources. they don't know how to maintain an active social media operations and validate the information that they receive and social media and so forth. so i am curious what you believe fee mesurol is in providing assistance and obviously fema does a terrific job on its own as we have learned other

organizations such as red cross, but what kind of assistance are we providing in monitoring and that getting social media sites into affected areas during disasters and how were we helping train the first responders and local communities on how to effectively incorporate social media into the prepared as planned? >> well, a lot of this of want to respond for the record. i will take a lot of time. we have tools out there. i was a county director by myself with a tiny budget of $325 the size my salary. the service in 1987. i learned the trick -- >> yeah, long way. >> the thing i learned about resource shortfalls is what i call 0:00 p.m., the people's money. first of all, no one the emergency management response, you have government, private sector and volunteers. what i would do and what i had to do back then just to get out press releases and deal with at that time facts machines was

recruit the public information officer from the sheriff's office, work with the fire department. again, i think you know there is always a staffing issue of the local level. going to have to look into your committee brings including volunteers. >> so is that the advice and recommendations that the department is getting because that is something that i shared with members of these communities? they often do happy ios and mayors' offices or shares departments and so forth. >> and as more agencies are now starting to look at how they use social media, we developed to training courses, a self study in delivery course. the challenge of these courses is as soon as you haven't done it has moved on. we're still talking about twitter and facebook part of this is engaging of the people who -- other people to increase several. there are things we have been working on to consolidate some of the things we're doing that

make available to locals such as being able to consolidate all of the various official twitter please -- feeds and the one place seven something starts up the public often times is not know who the follow. we have all the local feuds and build it based upon a particular address of the public as a place to go to. a lot of times you may have social media accounts but nobody knows about it before disaster. they don't know when a look. trying to point back to the best information, using those local officials imprinting of social media's of the people know that's where it's coming from. >> what is the role of the men entering the local officials, your processes and how they should learn to collaborate and learn to rely upon each other and doing this coordination and training? >> primarily done through the information officer course training, so specific to public information officer training and looking at the independent study course that anyone can take. it is free.

you can get to fema is website. we have courses, but a lot of the expertise is not an fema but, as you know, it's that the practitioner level. we try to build a network and point back to the resource. again, there are a lot of concepts about how you virtual as disinformation. part of the trick is we are trying to move such -- this is actually a way to listen to the public. how do you make operational decisions a lot of information that is not always official? it may have some information relevant to changing how you are responding. >> can you share with us in your experience whether it's the mudslides, hurricane sandy or others, what -- how much information our emergency responders are actually getting through such a media? >> it depends upon the skill sets and experiences. i will give you an example. we had a hurricane moving up to the carolina coast. national hurricane center was very concerned.

there was none evacuation. i was looking at some of the tweets. there were sanguine need to get the tourists out tsk. i was able to go back to the hurricane center. they know it's a hurricane. they don't think the threat warrants the evacuating. it wasn't that they were hearing it. sometimes crowd sourcing, here's what i said, here's what the public thinks i said. now i can change my message and amplify. this may be a little bit stronger storm. still concerned. if you don't know how the public is receiving your information you don't always know if they heard what you thought you meant ino, and the government does not something we ever have happened. we say something and then don't understand. if you listen to the response you can adjust that message and go, okay, maybe we need to amplify something. maybe they're getting something we think is critical. >> thank you. i wanted applaud you and vienna

for hopefully taking the lead in educating the country about the importance of social media during mass disasters are with disaster preparedness in response. at this time we are going to go to a brief third round of questioning. i turn it over to ranking member pain for five minutes of questions. >> thank you, madam chair. prior to my last round, you know, local police departments, play a cursory roll and preventing this the law enforcement terrorism prevention funding is the only funding designated specifically for prevention. so, you know, trying to figure out the rationale for eliminating the 25% set-aside for law enforcement, terrorism prevention. again, given the state's ability to cross all of those threats, where they want to put their emphasis to whether or not there

are additional funds are the things that our priority. i guess i'm coming back to understand your concern about how we make sure these events occur and that these groups have representation is where i would like to work with you on the uprising language. my experience was when i had disciplines' working, we have a lot. that process that the state was ultimately responsible for but driven by the disciplines of the locals give us a better product at any one group join independently. again to my understand the concern. would be willing to work on the appropriation language but i think we need to come back to looking at going to the states and looking at national driven, what are the capabilities and prevention, what funding may be required which will be different state-by-state in where we're putting in 25% which is the set aside. what if it's more? a lot of times to say you get 25 percent that's as much as you get. this is a priority.

you need to find these types of activity, it may drive more investors strategies but at the expense of other priorities. >> okay. you know, just a topic that nationally would be very important with hurricane sandy. late october, you know, we know what happened so along the mid-atlantic region including the state of new jersey. on january 292013 the president signed a disaster relief appropriations act of 2013 which included approximately 50 billion a supplemental appropriations to 19 federal agencies for expenses related to the consequences of hurricane sandy. to what extent disaster relief appropriation funds for fema programs have been obligated or expended. >> i will respond in writing to the specifics, but in general we

focused on the emergency response because we knew those were the expenses up front. we try to get all those down. that's usually the first thing the jurisdiction has to pay and is an extraordinary cost. we do the community disaster loan program as well as trying to find as much as bad as we can get done. so we can give you that. now we get into rebuilding. you have given us a couple of -- a couple of tools that we are now starting to get some traction. one is using cost estimates for his actual cost. this can sound like a bureaucratic answer, but it gives us the ability to go winning get the best estimate with the jurisdiction and fully fund the project on the front end verses only reimbursing as they go through the project. some of the larger projects and a moving to the system to the point where we are getting the closure on what that is. you want to build on mitigation. and this is the other thing that may be slowing is down a little bit. i am trying to drive some decisions about not using our

traditional cost benefit analysis, is looking to our path, almost like insurance models. for going to build back the waste water pump station we need to build it for the future. that may mean a different investment and perhaps more on the front end so that we don't come back and have to replace or deal with the consequences again >> and you know, i think you have heard me loud and clear in terms of understanding following the constitution and states' rights and i think you have seen what has been going on in new jersey in terms of using some of these funds for leveraged reasons other than what they are prescribed for. what kind of oversight does fema perform to make sure that funds are going where they are needed and guarantee that grantees are managing the funds effectively? >> well, the face we are in right now there is no direction by the state.

that is determining what is getting funding. there is not a lot of discretion and a state level for who we are funding. and we also work with the state and local jurisdictions on hazard mitigation which we have been working with the state all the way back through hurricane irene when they have had very aggressive programs to look at repetitive loss areas. but for right now when you talk about our funds, they are directly tied to some kind of damages or expenses tied to the disaster. there is not a discussion about prioritizing who gets what. it's about where the damages occur, wasn't eligible. we will get you the numbers on how much you gave us and how much has been allocated in those categories versus how much that remains to be written. >> okay. madame chair, i yield back. >> thank you. i now recognize myself for five minutes. you are indicating that right now the funds that really this state of new jersey is not -- does not have much discretion

that the funds that ranking member is referring to is being directed by fema. >> is being directed by where there are damages. we have some grantees applying for it, but he determines the funding is based on the county that was declared him eligible damages and business communities get those figures and we are making those reimbursements. again, part of that is tied. we actually speeding up some of those areas. but will be interesting is where we are now to kind of give you a comparison of what it looks like now for a permanent work verses the other disasters we of work to. >> and then something that is, not only in my jurisdiction but obviously in many others the nation's about flood insurance and under the new law that created a flood insurance advocate through homeowners' and the purpose is to provide home owners of the single point of contact who can help them begin to answer some many of these questions that some many of us

in congress certainly have. can you please share with us what vms current plans for standing up that office are and what might we anticipate being the implementation time line. .. what is the current plans and what would we anticipate the time line for implementation? >> we looked at this when the language was drafted. we thought it was the good idea. it better be more than one person is so to look at a separate advocacy groups so the reporting structure in the valuation is not tied to other programs goals or objectives of their independent. although it is part of the flood insurance program for gras will have to respond in writing but as she began promoting that we agree it is say a good idea. and to start that program up