for any of the fy-11 disasters beyond the end of fy-13. is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> will fema have fully funded the stafford act required recovery efforts in alabama and missouri due to the tornadoes and also in the midwest due to flooding and the northeast due to hurricane irene by the end of fy-13? >> i would say, sir, we'll work towards that. there are some based upon my experience, as soon as we have the projects and are obligated, i think that is the real milestone. the work won't necessarily have done. but we obligated the funds and projects as defined. where we may not make that mark is if we have issues about insurance and having to reconcile that or we get into certain environmental historical reviews which may take time to get projects moving. so we look at the obligation occurring when we saw it off from the state and the sign off from the project work sheets. that may not mean the work is done but that means the funds are obligated.

but knowing in some of the more technical and complex, we may not be completely written. because we're still working and, again, we have the appeals process when we disagree. so not knowing what may be appealed our goal is to get the projects written as quickly as we can to begin the work. so i would say that we would have the bulk of them done but experience tells me there may be projects either because of the technicality of it or because we're in disagreement. but our goal is to get the funds obligated so work can start back. as you know, i really put an emphasis on speed. i really feel the quicker we get construction back, the better communities are. it actually reduces our overall cost and recovery the faster we get communities back on their feet.

>> fema provides two methods of cleanup. as you know. they can select the corps of engineer process or a local authority with bid on the process. recently there's been concerns regarding the cost of using the corps when compared to other private options. we included in the report to be submitted that requires fema in conjunction with the core of engineers to explain the xpart in the cost factors between the corps and the private option communities have for debris removal. just wanted to check and see what the status of that report is. >> it's in process, sir. we're working on that. i'll tell you my personal observations are when we have jurisdictions that have the capability to do the debris, they have their contracts and particularly if they follow the steps required, it is generally faster and lower cost. where the corps provides a significant advantage is in the communities that don't have that capability, haven't had the

contracts or the event is bigger than their capabilities is to provide the management and bring in resources across the nation. so as this report comes up, i think you're going to see that in many cases we would support local jurisdictions to have that capability and managing debris. it's more cost effective. we get local hires and put money back in the economy. there are those events when the corps provides the service when they exceed the capability or not in place prior to the disaster.expired. mr. price? >> thank you, mr. chairman. administrator, i want to focus on the new national preparedness grant proposal. let me lay out just a few questions that i hope can you address. a feature of your budget is the extreme lining of the 16 separate preparedness grant programs and to this new single

titled national preparedness grant program. this excludes the emergency management performance grants and the firefighter grants but not much else. i mean you have 16 programs that are consolidated here. you also lay down a couple criteria which will govern your grant making. one is the utilization of a competitive risk based model for making funding decisions. those criteria raise certain issues, i think. because you're consolidating programs here that have had somewhat different,ales and certainly different criteria for funding decisions. the two largest are the state homeland security program and the urban area security initiative. these are two very different programs. one is intended to build core capacity across the country. the other is intended torisk ar

country. you're going to still provide as the 9/11 act requires, you're going to provide funding to each state. are you going to follow the kusht guidelines? how is that going to work? and then after you allocated funds for these minute mums, what is your next priority? i presume it is increasing capabilities and higher risk areas. but how do these two object ifrz he could exist. finally, when we're looking at the other programs, how are you going to grab on to this the use of a competitive risk based model?

what criteria is used to evaluate across these areas which previously would have been considered separately with a very targeted purpose? >> probably the shortest answer is to caveat that there are a lot of questions and more detail than i think i could probably cover in the time alotted. >> plapz can you answer to the extent that which that pattern would continue. >> let's talk with the urban security area and the state homeland security grants. other than how they're being identified and designated, the activities aren't that different as to what's eligible.

funding and where we had inconsistencies, we were actually able to go back and when we look at jurisdiction by jurisdiction, program by program, what are the overlaps? and if you actually start breaking down, you go what are the thins you're actually doing? people like to start with the money. i say what you are actually doing with it? are we building urban search and rescue teams? are we enhancing bomb squads? are we building fusion centers and maintaining those? does the make sense to put that together and then administer that as a single grant versus local and states are taking different pots of moneys to

build capability because they can take money from here and here. so as we start that process, it came back to we were looking jurisdiction by jurisdiction. literally a transit grant, a port grant, urban security area, a state. if we're looking at national preparedness and identify gaps, how do we get the funds to address those if we're so bifurcated and how we're identifying how the money is being spent in different programs which, again, oftentimes local jurgs dictions are working together already. as we look at fy-12, we're funding the urban security grandz and doing grants for transit and port which are being addressed on those grants. and as we look at the combined of those grants, we see similar

process within overall grant structure. but would identify in that grant application process the priorities for the urban areas, the priorities for those things as a national priority. but not necessarily put them into separate pots of money or identify separate funding streams and give more flexibility to the states and their partners to address how we would fund that within the jurisdictio jurisdictions. >> thank you, i now recognize mr. rogers. >> can you hear me okay? >> yes, sir. >> mr. chairman, thank you for giving me this time. apologize for being late. i had another testimony to give on another committee. but i want to be here to plead

for a firm commitment from you, mr. administrator to help my district and my state given our most recent activities. as you well know, kentucky was devastated by very crippling storms last weekend, hurricane-force winds, flooding, multiple tornadoes and including one which left a 90-mile trail of destruction in kentucky and into western tennessee. really rare for the hills and mountains to have a tornado at this time of year. i left many communities in that region completely ravaged. the towns of west liberty and east burnstead are destroyed. every building is destroyed. barton county, laurel county, morgan county, other counties still counting damages.

there are other counties around the state outside of my district that were hit also. massive loss of life and some families have lost everything. cars, homes, possessions, pictures, family bibles, you name it. gone. and then on top of that, two inch snow. my people are really hurting. and as can you see from the photograph that's i think we provided, homes have been demolished. businesses have been torn apart. families displaced across the countryside. the governor said it looked like a bomb went off. i agree. while the response of kentucky emergency management and the national guard, firefighters, police crews, church groups, countless veers from all over have been both timely and

valued. the damage brought by these storms far exceeds our local governments. state of emergency response teams to address and in west liberty, the courthouse. the government is practically destroyed. we are trying. i've heard countless reports of volunteers from all over. coordinated and driving hours to cut fees, remove debris, deliver water, work is now being done with snow on the ground. i want to thank you at the outset by saying the personnel were there immediately and helping for it and the effort and even for a request by the governor or a declaration. the numbers are staggering. 23 people lost their lives including 18 across my district. and it's not over yet probably.

222 are if the hospital. 48 counties affected by the storms. 29 have been declared disaster areas by the governor. 1500 are still without power. 260 without any water. almost 400 guardsmen have been deplied to secure the areas hardest hit and clear the routes for emergency responders. as i said in west liberty, nearlily every building in this county seat has been destroyed or damaged including the courthouse. there is no police department. and while my people are resill jent, there is a need and are overwlel ammed. on monday, as you know, i requested the president to approve a request by our governor or our federal emergency declaration.

it seems that fema is working diligently to evaluate the information at its disposal and the president made a disaster declaration last night, thank goodness, to provide individual assistance to seven counties in the region. i want to thank you for that. however, there are a number of counties, notably martin county which remain in dire need of both individual assistance and public assistance because the devastation torn up the roads, schools, courthouses beyond recognition. can you, mr. director, give us any indication on when a decision might be made about the remaining counties designated by the governor? >> yes, sir. as soon as the president declared, i've done this in several states. it bears explaining. rather than waiting until we

have all the information, as soon as we saw that we had sufficient damages that would recommend in the counties we were in we were able to get that to the president. the federal reporting officer appointed by the president will be able to add on counties for individual assistance without that going back to the president. so as soon as we can say there is damages warranting it, the federal reporting officer working with the state coordinating officer will start adding the counties on. we expect that to be a rapid process of not weeks but a day or so as we get the information supported. but we also made a conscience decision with the local officials that our priority would begin with individual assistance turned on first and then a count for public assistance. because many of those individuals are still responding, as you pointed out. trying to go back and find out about insurance and get the cost really for that, we are working with the state on getting back in to do public assistance. and as soon as we have those numbers, we'll process that request as well. but we put in the premium on the

individuals. we know right now it's going to be an issue about housing and their immediate needs. since we're working closely with the state,en that is a good news story, as you pointed out. i think this goes back to the investment strategies in homeland security dollars. there is a lot more capabilities at the state and local level than we've had before. i was sitting friday afternoon literally in the fema's watch as the tornadoes were hilting. we knew what was going on. and we were in contact with states and going we're standing by. if you need it, ask for it. and, again, it pointed out the resillency that states do have these days. they did not, and they made it very clear, you know, we got what we need. we're going to need you for recovery. we don't have if i direct federal assistance for the response. and that was testament to the local officials, to the volunteers, to the national guard. so we focused on individual assistance. the federal coordinating officer now will add on the counties where we have damages based upon the request of the state. and as we get the public assistance done, we'll process that. we'll work to get that quickly

and mr. chairman that may be where we turn on some counties. we may still have counties we're still counting in. but we already see the state's threshold. rather than wait until they're all done, we'll turn on what we have and keep counting until the we get the damages identified. >> good. good. well, i can't say anything but praise so far after fema has done. it's an extremely difficult situation because there's no communication. the storm took out the tower communications, telephones and internet. and so it's difficult to even contact the county or county executive or the mayors. beside so clobbered with debris and trees and limbs and damage, it's been remarkable thing that we've been this far this quick.

it's a devastating time. i really appreciate your commitment and your rapid decision because that's all important given the time of year it is down there in the winter time. the devastation is widespread as it is and the human factor is altogether important here. these people are hurting severely. i look forward working with you as we good on down the pike. >> thank you. >> thank you. i, too, want to join my colleagues, administrator, for thanking you for your service and your important contributions. before i get on to another topic, i must tell you, you're talking about the block grant with a continuing foeg us on uac doesn't make any sense to me at all. i'm very concerned that efforts

such as including uasi under a larger block grant could result in a decrease in federal funds while the risk of terror events still remains high and i don't understand and maybe we can have a continuing discussion another time how uasi which is supposed to go to the areas most at risk and be protected. there are other funds for other areas. everybody needs it. but putting it all on a black grand sents a message to me, cut and decrease the emphasis. so let me turn to indian point. i'm also troubled by reports that the environmental protection agency, the nuclear regulatory commission and the federal emergency management agency have engaged in on going discussions to determine which agency and with what funds would be responsible for large scale event at a nuclear power plant. i have to tell you that is a cartoon that is just too serious

to be real. while things are going on and everything exploding, all the agencies are still deciding about who's in charge. as you may know, the indian point energy center is nearly 40-year-old nuclear reactor. evacuating 17 million people within 50 miles is impossible. the governor responds to a possible event at indian point should be planned, practiced and ready for implementation. we will be responsible for a large scale evacuation. you're still not deeping it. our discussions over the best practices for a federal response to a nuclear cleanup being discussed between fema and other government agencies. >> that's the direction of the nuke regs. they have the authority to order the evacuation ands we support

that. >> we've done this with some exercises with the national security staff, looking at some of the issues and a post event of what would happen to materials to be cleaned up and the fact that there were different standards out there for what we determine what was permanently cleaned up. you have regulations from epa for super fund sites. you have protective criteria that was issued for evacuation decisions. and we were working on what would be the level of cleanup required before people could resume normal and permanent activities. we were also looking at what levels would be set for those that may have to go back in working critical facilities if the cleanup had not been completed. we had in the exercise determined that because

different programs had different standards for cleanup that we wanted to have a consistent approach and a post event and what would be determined as cleaned up versus what the evacuation criteria was. there is also an undergoing review by the nuclear regulatory commission based upon the reviews of what happened in japan but also facilities here to look at what additional actions and protective measures may be required. but not having seen the reports, i do note that those were discussions we engaged in was to make sure that criteria such as super fund were also applied in nuclear power plant access and a cleanup phase and how we would apply that uniformly so we wouldn't have different standards, one for evacuation and one for cleanup which may be confusing or lead to issues in trying to make decisions about re-entry. >> well i thank you for that thoughtful response. i hope we don't have to face that decision. but how long is this evaluation

and decision making process going on? >> well, we've been working on this actually an event prior to what happened in japan. and the criteria that we were going to use uniformly across the agencies. that is pretty close to going through the concurrent process where all the agencies are signing off on that. i would have to defer to the nrc when they're in the review process. that is an on going process that they instituted after the events there. and also looking at other threats that we face for nuclear power plants. our role as fema is the area outside of the power plant, working with state and local governments on protective measures, evacuations, exercise programs based upon the criteria that is developed by the nuclear regulatory commission. >> well, let me just follow up with two other quick -- is my time up? sorry.

okay. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. welcome, mr. administrator. thank you for what you do for a lot of people that have experienced real disasters out there one of which was last summer as you're keenly aware and missouri river in iowa for months and months people were subjected to that. usually think of a flood as a one time event. but this went on and on for months as we all know. and it's folks there are very concerned about submission to eliminate the predisaster mitigation and your statement also that the most costly and frequent natural disasters is flooding and that you're going to maximize the use of your flood grant portfolio to assist in managing risk. could you clarify, translate

this into a statement in a way that tells my residents of flood stricken state and its responders and local officials, you know, what does this actually mean, the risk managing initiative? how is this going to unfold? what does it mean to them. >> we still have in the flood insurance program such as the buyout program for repettive loss properties which is one of the things that is often time used to address residential issues after repeated flooding. it is oftentimes better to buy out rather than repair. and so we also have in that program the ability to fund for elevation. those are targeted to homeowners in the case of buying out or floods elevated. those impacted by the floods, the state has under the stafford act additional funds not just the funds using for repair but

under section 404 they get additional mitigation dollars to look at these types of risks in the state as well. the decision the cut was not an easy decision. but it was also reflected across all of our programs and looking at where we had other programs that will addressing similar issues, the fact that we still have about $174 billion many backlog projects to be spent and, again, everybody wants to protect their part of the budget. my responsibility was to provide recommendations on what we could do with our budget to achieve the goals we had. we said it's a good program. but it he cost, can we continue to afford that and looking at providing funding for other programs? >> all right. >> it seems to me that, you know, predisaster mitigation is cheaper than paying the damages

afterwards. there's a school of thought and very knowledgeable disaster management officials that believe the predisaster mitigation program is on the chopping block. he's been ineffectively administ administered. the funds are not extended because of lack of good projects rather than those basically a process that was very cumbersome, oftentimes misguided and limited the projects that were available. i don't know what you would say to those people that it's more of a management problem than it is a program problem. it's very difficult to qualify. >> again, no cut is easy. i heard about predisaster and how they're allocated and difficulties administering the program. and if that was the only reason, then i would not have supported

that. we looked across a program and said we're going to have to make cuts. do we cut everything in percentage or do we take whole programs and cut them and keep other things funded at the level they need to operate? we looked at what we do in our other programs in predisaster mitigation with flood and the flood insurance program. we looked at the remaining balances in the predisaster mitigation program. we also looked at the amount of money out there in section 404. in all of the areas, not saying that mitigation isn't important, or that defense and strategy and predisaster mitigation is not also important, it was an area that we had other programs doing similar work and so we made the decision that this would be a program that we would zero out. it's not a popular decision. it's not one that i necessarily would like to say was something i want to do. it is something that based upon being pragmatic about my budget and making investment decisions, do we cut everything a certain percentage or make decisions about programs to eliminate

where other programs provide some if not all of the capability that's we're looking at and support the overall programs. >> is there any way to determine what you save avoiding the future disaster as you -- any kind of cost benefit analysis or anything? >> i heard people say four to $7 for every dollar invested. the problem is there is not enough money and never be enough money to significantly reduce the nation's risk. you have a better charns of getting states to adopt building codes and enforce them and really save money versus a project by project strategy that for that project does good but nationally, you're not moving the needle. you cannot mitigate building by building. you have to look more systemically. this program i think did a lot to get people interested in mitigation. it got a lot of people to look at things they could do in their communities for disasters.