>> announcer: tonight on the communicators, george ford, chief economist for the phoenix center for advanced legal and economic public policy studies, and mark cooper, research director for the consumer federation of america debate the fcc's proposal allowing consumers to buy their own set top boxes instead of renting them from cable providers. a move to open up competition in the set top box market. they are joined by lydia beyoud from bloomberg saus. >> we think we need competition in the set top box market.

the '96 act said we want competition competition. some places it has worked. some places it hasn't. this is one place where it really hasn't. we think consumers would have more choices and lower prices if we got competition into that space. >> the first question is is there a market for set top boxes? >> the answer is really in terms of what is delivered over the cable network, no, because the box is actually a component of the network. that's the most efficient way to design and deliver cable television service. it's the cheapest way to do it, most efficient way to do it. no market has developed. the companies would prefer a market if it was more fish to do it that way. >> watch tonight at 8:00 eastern on cspan 23. our live coverage of the presidential race continues tuesday night for the new york state primary. join us at 9:00 eastern for election results, candidate speeches and viewer reaction. taking you on the road to the white house on cspan, cspan

radio, and cspan do ot ork org. >> live coverage begins tonight at 7:00 eastern on cspan 2. cspan brings you live coverage from the white house correspondent's dinner saturday april 309. the dinner includes a guest list of major celebrities, remarks from president obama and this year's featured comedian larry wilmore, host of the nightly show. now a hearing on fema preparedness with officials from the department of homeland security, the department of transportation, the government accountability office, and fema. topics include proposed budget cuts, first responders, fema training, and the transportation of hazardous materials. this is an hour and 15 minutes.

i call this hearing to order. good afternoon, welcome to the panel. thank you for joining us today. this committee is charged with oversight of all federal spending, which we accomplish through hearings like this one and through regular reports that are provided by various agencies that also help to us oversee government and its spending. today we're examining spending at the federal emergency management agency and the need to make reforms in that spending. given that our government borrows about a million dollars every minute and has a $19 trillion debt we can't afford to allow waste to persist in government. waste in fema has been described in dial by senator coburn, the gao, the inspector general. one of our witnesses today, inspector general roth found in a report issued today that

maryland bought $70,000 worth of computer equipment that it did nothing with for nearly a year and a half. in 2012, senator coburn reviewed one fema grant program and conclude the program is struggling to demonstrate now it is making u.s. cities less vulnerable to attack and more prepared if one were to occur despite receiving over $7 million in federal fund. after ten years, a clear danger for the urban area security initiative grant program is that it would be transform from a risk based program identifying security gaps into a entitlement program for states and cities. i think that risk still exists and many states are is up planting some typical expenditures they would typically pay for themselves with this money. i don't think to this date we have adequately corrected the deficiencies that dr. coburn unto. just last month inspector general roth released a report

that had 333 recommendations for reform to the grant programs at fema. however, only found that four permanent changes have been made to fema during the time in which these recommendations had come forward. despite recommendation force a reform over five year period little in the way of reform appears to have occurred. we had a hearing on this in 2013 in which we went through some of the various forms of waste that were occurring at fema. but even since that hearing, we still continue to have problems. $280,000 was recently spent for a bearcat armored vehicle in dover. the also time we were around we complained of a $600,000 armored bear cat vehicle for cain. i guess new hampshire is ready for the next invasion. we also found recently, or the inspectors have found $1.7 million for unused radios and generators in hawaii. and $174,000 for unused radios

in d.c. this is since we last met to talk about waste. every dollar wasted makes a difference to taxpayers. right now, fema is more than $20 billion in debt because of the flood insurance program. disaster spending far out paces the annual funding congress provides leading to the need for supplemental funding every year or so. fema has provided $40 billion in preparedness grants since 2001. these grants flow primarily to state and local agencies who all too often seem to be using the funds for things they would never purchase with their own money, such as snow cone machines bought by some michigan counties. local communities love federal grants because they don't have to tax local constituents to pay for the spending. the federal government hides the grants in the massive $19 trillion debt. for this reason we must be diligent in insisting that local

communities' needs be largely paid for by local taxes. a significant amount of this spending is also duplicative of grants available from other departments. such as the $650 million handed out to local police by the department of justice last year. i expect general roth, inspector general roth will give much more insight into some of the problems today. i in my office hear a lot about fema from our constituents. the most frequent flaints complaints are about flood maps. a neighbor of mine has a house out at the local lake. his house is about 60 feet above the level of the dam. yet fema as map has him in the flood plan and he has to pay extra money on insurance even though it's inconceivable that his house is going to flood in the even of a dam break. i hear that it takes too flong to counties to receive

reimbursements for disaster recovery work. perhaps if we weren't buying bear cart armored vehicles for local police forces we might have more money to take care of some of these problems of the i'm eager to hear what our witnesses have to say. but i would welcome comments from our ranking senator member baldwin. >> thank you for working with me to hold the important hearing to examine the federal emergency management agency's efforts to assist states for preparing for terrorism and natural disasters. i would like to also thank our witnesses for being here today. we have learned from the attacks in brussels and paris and san bernardino that we face critical and evolving threats as a nation. not only do we face new risks of terrorism. we also face ongoing threats of natural disasters, including floods, hurricanes, and

tornadoes. fema is charged with the critical role of ensuring that our first responders have the tools and resources they need to prevent, prepare for, and respond to all hazards. for nearly 40 years, fema has implemented robust programs to increase states' capabilities to protect against disasters. notably, fema provides critical federal preparedness grant funding as wohl as real time training and exercises for first responders. i think all of our states, and indeed the country, have benefitted from this critical assistance. however, as i have said in previous subcommittee hearings, we must continually assess and evaluate our programs to ensure that we are addressing our nation's priorities in the most efficient and effective manner possible. so thank you again for being here mr. manning, to discuss ways that fema can continue to

prepare first responders for new and emerging threats as well as increase oversight of its programs. one area of particular importance to me and my home state of wisconsin, and certainly many other states across the country, is the significant increase in the transportation of crude oil by rail. at a higher rate than ever before, we are seeing this volatile substance traveling in rail cars past homes, schools, and businesses. with increased volume comes increased risk and last november two trains carrying hazardous materials derailed in the state of wisconsin, spilling hundreds of gallons of crude noil one case and thousands of gallons of ethanol in another. fortunately nothing caught fire and nobody was hurt. however, in one of the instances, 35 families were

evacuated from their homes. we have seen other derailments across the country, including in illinois, west virginia, north dakota, alabama, and virginia just in the past year. these instances pose an immense threat to communities, people, and the environment. for example, this past weekend a train derailed in wawatosa, wisconsin. no one was hurt. and these train cars were not carrying hazardous material. but it's not enough to rely on luck. and we have to have sufficient plans in place to respond to derailments, including the worst case scenarios. now i'm proud to have included a number of provisions in the recently passed highway bill to improve first responder access to information about these

trai trains. and it's really critical that the department of transportation implement the reforms as soon as possible. however, we must do more to address the significant security concern. and it's by i requested that the inspector general audit whether the department of homeland security has established sufficient plans and coordination efforts to effectively respond to and recover from railway accidents involving hazardous materials. i look forward to the results of that audit and to hearing from our witnesses about what moore we can do to respond to this emerging threat. i am also concerned by a recent deputy of homeland security office of inspector general report that found that fema has not adequately analyzed recurring oig recommendations to implement permanent changes to improve oversight of homeland

security grant program. specifically, the ig found that while fema tracks specific audit recommendations on a state by state basis, fema has not proactively annized its audits to discover trends, engage in root cause analysis, and implement corrective action over the entire program. like the ig, i am concerned that states could be repeating the same mistakes that that we run the risk of money being spent for its intended purpose. similarly, i am concerned about a gao report that found fema does not comprehensively collect or monitor the status of corrective actions made by federal departments that participate in national level exercises. while fema has made progress in addressing this issue, more needs to be done to track corrective action to ensure that

fema has an up to date outlook of national preparedness. i look forward to hearing from you, mr. manning on how fema plans to improve oversight of the homeland security grant program and track the status of corrective actions made by federal departments. and i want to again thank chairman paul for providing us this opportunity to discuss these important issues. and our witnesses for taking part in the discussion. it's my hope that when we leave here today we have concrete ways to improve preparedness efforts for first responders, strengthen oversight of the fema programs and deliver our nation's priorities in the most efficient and effective ways possible. thank you. >> thank you. our first witness today will be mr. timothy manning from fema. mr. manning is the deputy administrator for fema for protection and national

preparedness. before his confirmation he was head of the new mexico department of homeland security. and prior to that worked in a number of other emergency management and first responder capacity at the state and local level. mr. manning, thank you for your testimony today. >> thank you mr. chairman. ranking member baldwin, medicals of the committee. thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about how fema supports states in preparing for terrorism and natural disasters. as a former first responder at the local and state level i can assure you that we at fema remain committed to ensuring that our citizens and first responders have the tools they need to be prepared for if full range of threats and hazards. in the past year alone, the u.s. has experienced historic drought, malicious cyber attacks, extensive flooding, widespread wildland fires. mass shootings, alone with numerous other events. the tragic events recently in paris and brussels show how

important it is for us as a nation to be ready to prevent, protect against respond to and recover from complex coordinated terrorist attacks. with such a wide ranging array of threats and hazards we must work together to leverage all of our collective resources at every level of government in order to achieve our goal of a secure and resilient nation. with that in mind, i'd like to tell you about some of the things we are doing to address these challenges. fema is working with every state and large urban air to identify their specific risks set outcome based targets and assess their capabilities. they identify remaining gaps in their capability which then drive investments across their jurisdiction in grants. but in local resources and in mutual aid planning. this ensures fema's grant funds go to the most critical priority areas. in 2015, fema pride $176 billion in preparedness grant funds to address priority capability gaps. we annized state information

alongside risk and capability data to ensure funds are being used efficiently. in addition, helps to fulfill capability gaps through our training and technical assistance programs: in 2015 alone, achieved over 2 million course completions across all of our training programs which include the center for domestic preparedness in alabama the emergency management institute and the national fire academy in maryland. the center for homeland defense and security and the rural domestic preparedness consortium in kentucky. we provide courses ranging from online introductory level to highly specialized hands on training for fire and other medical disciplines including the only fed really chartered weapons of mass destruction

training in the nation. as risks and threats continue to evolve we must adapt our programs to meet those most pressing needs. fema continues to prepare for complex coordinated terrorist attacks working with state and local jurisdictions the fbi and private sector partners to assist communities through a series of counterterrorism awareness workshops where participants from multiple disciplines discuss and analyze capabilities required to respond to an attack involveding a coordinated assault against multiple targets. they work through scenarios to identify gaps in their current plans and capabilities and develop mitigation strategies. today we have held 23 workshops most recently in st. louis, missouri. another example of how fema's preparedness prepares adapt to address emerging threats relates to the exponential increase to the domestic shipment of crude oil since 2008 which has resulted in an increased threat of spills, explosions and other

incidents. fema collaborated with the 48 contig use states, the epa and department of homeland to define the biggest capability gaps related to crude oil incidents. this allowed us to target to our most critical needs. threw partnership with the transportation technology center, in colorado as well as training on the information, materials from the center for domestic preparedness in aniston. fema also worked with the u.s. dot, the coast guard and epa to design and deliver an exercise series known as operation safe deliverly specifically addressing crude oil incidents. in total nearly 1500 responders from across the country participated in either training or exercise relating to crude oil incident in 2015. we recognize past events are not an accurate way to assess future

risks. fema uses a capability approach to target resources so that jurisdictions around the country will be able to handle a wide range of incidents. we're analyzing the 2015 risk and capability data gathered from our state partners and will use that to guide future decisions ensuring we are effectively using our resources to target the highest priority needs. we look forward to working with you all to that end. thank you again for the opportunity to testify. i look forward to any questions the committee may have. >> thank you. our second witness is mr. john roth, inspector general of the department of homeland security. mr. roth was confirmed in 2014 after two years of service as the director of the office of criminal investigations for the fda. prior to his work at the fda he served with distinction for some 25 years at the department of justice in assignments ranging from counternarcotics to disrupting terrorist financing and in places raping from eastern michigan to paris, france.

thank you for taking the time for your testimony today. >> good afternoon. chairman paul, ranking member baldwin and member of the subcommittee thank you for inviting me here to testify today. my testimony today will discuss our audit work with regard to fema preparedness grants. fema homeland security grant programs assist states in preparation for terrorist attacks, major disasters and other emergencies. fema is responsible for partnering with states to coordinate grants training and exercise to help ensure preparedness. this grant programs fund a range of preparedness activities including planning, organization, equipment purchases, training exercise, and management and administration. from fiscal years 2009 to '14 fema assisted grantees in achieving program goals. we have completed audits of fema grants in 58 states and

territories. in most instances, with some notable exceptions the grantees administered the grants effectively in conformance with federal law. however, as with any large diverse program we continue to identify issues in awarding the expenditure managed and monitoring of the grants. the issues we have found are best described in five categories. first, poor development of metrics. we found that many states did not develop fully measurable and achievable goals and objectives. rather they had many broad based goals and objectives with no time line for completion and few concrete measures to determine if the goals and objectives were met. second, incomplete or non-existence assessments of risks and capabilities. to help make smart decisions how best to use kbrant fuds states need to do a better job of analyzing the risks they peace and developing appropriate capability targets to address them. fema in turn needs the make sure it reviews the state assessments

for accuracy and completeness. third, untimely obligation of funds. we found numerous instance was fema awarding grants but then the states delaying and distributing the money to the recipient of the grant. we have had a number of instances in custom months and sometimes over year would pass before the states awarded the funds to subgrantees. fourth, insufficient management controls. states are required to monday for subgrantees activities to ensure compliance with applicable federal requirements. however we have found a number of of situation where is they have not monitored the grant process. lastly, improper expend turls. these grants are awarded so that states and local agencys can prevent, prepare for, protect fwens and snond to acts of terrorism, major disasters and other mjsz. however, we found that grant funds were not always spent for their intended purposes or well

supported. while fema has worked to improve its grant processes and oversight our audits continue to fine the same issues in state after state. of our 490 audit recommendations resulting from these 59 aut ads it is of states and territories. 91% of the recommendations identified similar challenges year after year. notwithstanding this, fema had not taken the lessons from our audits to create a systemic and institutional change in the manner in which it oversees the program. fema simple she tracks specific audit recommendations but hasn't proactively analyzed the audits to discover trends engage in a root cause analysis and implement an action over the entire program rather than state by state. thus fema and the states are repeating the mistakes over and over again and we cannot assure that the money is being spent appropriately. fema resolved only four of the 333 recommendations related to

program oversight, less than 2%, through permanent changes to the homeland security security grant program. this shows a troubling lack of commitment to program oversight. given risk and expense of the department's fema preparedness grants we have continued our audit efforts in this area. for example, we recently conducted a risk base analysis to determine the highest priority grantees for our next rounds of grant awed under the circumstances. fortunately, fema has agreed to development and implement a comprehensive plan for conducting an ongoing analysis of recurring audit recommendations. it will include clearly delineated roles and responsibility and policies and procedures for determining trends and system wide problems as well as recommending solutions to improve oversight of grant programs. it plans to complete this plan by december of 2016. mr. chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. i welcome any question you or other member of the subcommittee may have. >> thank you. our third witnesses is from

chris curry from the government accountability office. mr. curry is the director of emergency management, national preparedness and critical infrastructure protection for the department of homeland security and justice at gao. >> thank you chairman paul. ranking member baldwin and other members of the committee. it's a pleasure to to be here to talk about. i think it's foreign to talk to about the progress fema has made over the last decade. before 2006, fema was not responsible for disaster preparedness. now it is to implement the national preparedness levels across all of state government. second was to assess the capabilities of state and local partners. third was to manage and provide all of the department of homeland security preparedness grants to these partners. progress across these areas has

been mixed. fema has made progress in establishing the structures necessary to coordinate preparedness across federal departments. for example, fema issued the national response framework in 2012. this set up the 15 emergency support functions or esfs that deliver response capabilities and designated a lead federal department as coordinator for each esf as well. to test these functions, fema has conducted numerous exercises to identify capability gaps and identify lessons learned from real world disasters. challenges still exist in this area, though. fema cannot direct other federal departments' preparedness efforts or resourcers. it relies on coordination to do. that for example, fema coordinates national exercises. but we found in a other agencies don't always report back on actions they took to close the gaps identified during these exercises as senator bald within mentioned in her opening statement. we also found that esf

coordinating agencies like dot lack guidance from fema on what actions they were supposed to take to demonstrate preparedness. we recommended that fema better track these open corrective actions and provide guidance to other departments to help them in their respective areas. now fema has implemented some of the recommendations and is taking sfeps to close the rest of them. now, switching to preparedness grants, the story hasn't been quite as positive. officers we found a risk of duplication and a need for better coordination across these preparedness grants. these grants share similar goals, they fun similar projects, and they sometimes provide funds to the same grantees. to be fair n some ways they were designed this way. but we found that fema lacks the data and the controls to review and compare grant applications across programs which risks unnecessary duplication. we recommended that fema collect more information to fix the problem. fema has taken some steps to

temporarily patch this program with updates to its current grant management system. however the agency's long term solution to this problem really hinges on full implementation of its new none disaster grant management system. however, this system has been delayed for years and is now not expected to be in full use until sometime next year. as a result our recommendation likely won't be addressed any time soon. i'll also like to talk about assessing state and local capabilities and measuring the impact of grants. mr. roth talked about this as well. it's true, it's difficult to measure preparedness and assess capabilities. but it's not impossible. with over $40 billion provided since 9/11, it's also very important. fema has taken steps to assess kpabltsz such as requiring states to complete annual preparedness reports and rolling these all up into one big yearly national preparedness report. it's also developed a tool that states can use to assess their risks and capability needs.

these are good steps since states are in the best position to assess their needs and risks. however, when it comes to allocating the grants, fema relies on states to self report their capability requirements and level of preparedness rather than a quantitative level across jurisdictions. this makes it differ to ensure information is karat and equal across the states. we've recommended that fema complete a more quantitative national preparedness assessment of these capability gaps at each level and direct grant funding accordingly. oufr however, fema disagrees with this approach and does not plan to address this recommendation as we've written it. this completes my prepared remarks. d be happy to an any questions you have. >> i'd like to introduce our last witness this afternoon. john drake is deputy administrator of the pipeline and hazardous materials safety

administration, otherwise known as phmsa. he helps protect people and the environment by advancing the safe transportation of hazardous materials. phmsa regulates the administration of 2.6 million miles of gas and liquid pipelines and one million daily shipments of hazardous trls by land, sea, and air. before joining, he served as the u.s. department of transportation where he overall policy implementation with a specific focus on freight, surface reauthorization and safety policy. mr. drake also worked as the director of governmental affairs at the federal motor carriers safety administration. before joining the u.s. department of transportation, john drake was a capitol hill

staffer for nearly a decade working on the senate committee on commerce, science, and transportation, and the house committee on transportation and infrastructure. he holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the university of california at santa cruz. thank you so much for being here. we look forward to your testimony. >> thank you, ma'am, and good afternoon. mr. chairman paul, ranking member baldwin and medicals. subcommittee thank you for inviting me to testify before you today on the pipeline and hazardous material safety agency. every day, more than six million tons of energy products and hazardous materials move across our igs in a. many of these materials, like lithium batteries, pesticides, furniture oils gasoline and cleaning products are essential to daily i have been loose.

but unplanned releases of any of these products can cause harm to our environment. inmaterials. in recent years, along with the department of transportation, they have been focused on the increase in the amount of crude oil. this affected communities in many ways. from increased traffic at great crossings to concerns about leaks, spills and derailments. further these oil trains are carrying larger volumes to crude oil per train than ever before. safety is the department of transportation's top priority. that is why we took more than 30 actions over the last two years to ensure the safe transportation of crude oil. most recently working in accordiation with the railroad issued a rule that adopted designs to reduce the consequences and helped reduce

the probability of accidents involving trains and transporting large quantities of flammable liquids. they cover everything from approved tank car design to new requirements like speed and breaking systems and routing. this work builds on this agency's previous actions to help ensure the communities and emergency responders are prepared in the event of a derailment. we work closely with law enforcement and responders and professionals to share information and support the efforts to prepare for and respond to incidents involving hazardous materials. we also have a grant program that provides approximately $28 million per area to states, tribes and responders to prepare for and respond to incidents including pipeline spills and train derailments. these support critical training for emergency responders and other professionals who may be called on to respond to an

incident. we also recently released a document called the tripper which is a training document that is a free resource developed in coordination with fema and other public safety agencies at the state and local level that leverages the expertise of responders to better prepare them to safely manage hazmat incidents. other training efforts are the work with fema and the fire administration to develop guidelines for materials training that established the most current standards to improve the quality and comprehensiveness for local and state first responders. we work with canada and mexico to prepare the guide book. the go to manual that is the first document they will use. >> we are grateful for the fast

act that validate many of the most recent actions and support to improve the safety of oil trains and new provisions that will help us prepare communities going forward. we are working to implement the provisions and an openness to new technology. thank you for inviting me to appear and i look forward to your questions. >> with the inspect or through permanent changes. this shows a troubling lack of commitment to the program

oversight. your response? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i think i would disagree with my colleague that we have made a great deal more changes with programmatic changes to design. the entire development of the national preparedness system and the elements with the grands are designed to achieve were made with addressing through audit findings and working with the grantees. while maybe four major changes have been made to the announcements and the grand document, a great deal of those findings come from matters of training with the grandees and interaction with the grant's management staff at the that level. we have carried out a great number of connection cal

assistance visits and interactions with the grantees to count for the issues and continue to change the way we do technical assistance through really all of those programs. >> is there a way to measure whether or not we are achieving our goal or whether or not we are wasting less money? >> it's difficult to do given the nature of the develop that they are conducting. what fema has done is put together a process where they attempt to measure the gaps in the preparedness and what the states can do to meet the gaps. nogao has done work with regard to that as well. >> you mentioned in your testimony that you didn't seem to have an indication that fema was interested in the reforms. do you have a suggestion for how we would have fema become more

interested? >> you are talking about the capabilities? we have been talking about fema for years and part of what they are doing is the system that starts at the state and local level and see what the capability needs are and work your way up to sometimes they are not done completely and not identified. we are not sure how you can allocate based on risks. >> do you believe that they are

dependent on that and they should be raised through local taxes? >> we found examples that was on the audits that once you dive in and look at what the money was spent on, it wasn't justified as part of the grant program. for example, overtime for police officers and certain jurises was not there to have infrastructure, but for ordinary kinds of things. they would have utility, but not a preparedness function. >> i think you are all sincere, but he is trying to waste the taxpayer's money. i don't question sincerity, but i see this waste report that we put out every week and find it everywhere. every department's got it. we find people who say we are going to root out military waste, but give them $100 billion more in mone. if i'm the

mayor of a city of a million people, i only have a certain amount of money and i have to prioriti prioritize. that's part of the problem and we don't have finite resources and we say that's for homeland security. we give more money and it's restricting to find the waste. i have another question for mr. manning. the government has been paying for scientist sting ray cell towers. are you still doing that with fema money? >> yes, sir. >> do you know how many? >> my information is since the beginning of the grants, 10. >> okay. a lot of us who are concerned about privacy are worried about

watching people and following them without warrants. the maryland special court of appeals ruled that people have a reasonable expectation that their cell phones will not be used as a realtime tracking device. the federal government has gone in a positive correction that you are only using warrants. it is my understanding that local government is still able to use these without a paurnt and like many things, they are used for all kinds of petty crimes. is there anything that fema is doing to protect the civil liberties of those from local law enforcement without warrants? >> in regards to these particular pieces of equipment, they are on the list that we have developed with law enforcement and the department of justice. the legal use is a responsibility and they are subject to the provisions and oversight of the department of justice.

it is their responsibility to use any development obtained legally and consistent with the department of the justice where we find instances where that is not the case. we can require them to pay all that money back on top of whatever actions. >> i guess the determination is what is legal and what's not. that's according to the one condition, they are not doing it. it's left open for local law enforcement. there would be no reason why they couldn't actually demand that of local law enforcement. >> that's an interesting suggestion and the matter of the legal use is one of the department of justice, but i will contact them. >> we will look at it from the legislative perspective, but if you could look at it because it could be something that the decision for the federal officers to get warrants was

done by the administration and this could be done as well. if you give us an answer, i would appreciate it. senator? >> thank you. mr. drake, thank you for being here today. as you noted in your testimony, there have been significant increases in the number of trains carrying crude oil and other hazardous materials. i hear a lot from constituents along the rail ways that cross wisconsin. as i mentioned in my opening statement, i was proud to author a provision that ensures local first responders have realtime information when hazardous materials will be traveling through the communities in their duris dictions of responsibility. so you mentioned in your testimony that they will publish a notice of proposed rule making

to address the mandate in july. the fast act gives department of transportation a year to issue this regulation. i'm going to ask you if you are confident that you will meet the december deadline. >> thank you for the question, ma'am. a lot of the work that we have done up to date currently has been in working with fema and other stakeholders involved in mapping out to the framework by which this proposed regulation will be written. so at this point in time, my answer to you is yes, we feel confident that we will meet the december timeline. >> okay. the highway bill also directs the u.s. department of transportation to implement railroads to improve their worst case oil discharge response plans as soon as possible. dot first issued a notice on revisions to comprehensive oil spill requirements in 2014.

in your testimony you state that the agency will publish a notice of proposed rule making. >> so i think there may be -- there is currently a regulatory proposal under review. it's under review and this i think there may be testimony and i apologize, but we issued that looking at the appropriateness of the plans for the railroad industry. that is under review and they are going to have about 90 days to review it. this is something that we started with the rule, the high

hazard rule and something that is very important for us getting done. >> thank you. you also discussed that they are working with fema to implement and maintain support systems to help state and local training offices improve the quality of training including needs assessment and testing. i would like you to elaborate that fema is working with the states on and what goes into the assessments and how are they followed up on? >> a lot of the work we do, we do a lot of coordination work on that side of things. a lot of the materials we developed, a lot of the preparedness that we do is done in coordination with fema. often times they play a very important in the efforts.

to your question specifically, there is a number of products we put forward and the response plan and also this tripper document as well that developed in coordination with them. the idea is to provide as best we can specific tools and resources that helps us better act and better respond to the releases. >> okay. >> mr. manning, as you know, fema serves as the incidents involving hazardous materials. as i understand it, people to is is finalizing the oil and chemical annex to the response and recovery plan to clarify responsibilities in this area. can you discuss this and the date you expect it to be

complete? >> so the annex is to the federal operations plan. that's a document to the national response framework. these describe how the government comes together to deliver assistance when they request in times of emergency. the plans are executed by fema and drafted by fema on behalf of the inner agency. the government-wide plan. this particular document is in the last stages of review. we expect it shortly. i would expect it within the month as i understand. >> within the month. thank you. >> i appreciate the training that they provide to first responders and that's why i remain concerned about cuts to fema's preparedness in the president's fiscal year budget request.

particularly a 63% cut to the national domestic preparedness consword yum. you mentioned this program specifically in your testimony as an important component of our preparedness efforts. as you know this funds the training program. how does fema plan to address if the president's request ends up being enacted? >> the budget request reflects difficult decisions and balancing priorities across the security enterprise. our training regime across the entire homeland security world with our close partners and we have other assets with the continued training applicants. and a great number of partners in state and local governments

who are using grant resources from other programs. to do more training just in the last few years, ttci, the transportation technology center ran the people through the training. they had 300 through the training. the center based in kentucky had more than 8,000 people go through rail training and the firefighters with grants that they received from us have done almost 6,000 offerings as well. we are constantly balancing the requirements we look at that as a combination of the people

training to do a job and the development. we e vaguate the gaps and it may be the right number of people, but the right training. we focus on getting seats trained for a subject matter. other areas may be the right number offing and we focus on the lines of equipment to build that. we have to use them to apply the resources in we can get the most efficient use of the funts. >> senator? >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you for including me in this hearing although i don't regularly sit on the subcommittee. this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. north dakota was the site of a

spectacular oil train fire and the first responders were volunteers and the fire chief and that was the most important what is the federal and state role? as a tax collector, i ran into the four rs act. it greatly restricted how states could enact tax where the pipelines are rrlts. they wanted a system of tearers and they knew this was a role under the commerce clause. it means if you restrict the funding, you may have to rethink

as you said your tough choices. i share senator baldwin's concern that this training that the chief talked about which was so critical to his ability to respond in a way that protected the lives of his firefighters is on the chopping block. i vo a lot of concerns that doesn't adequately fund the programs and we will be fighting hart to make sure as it relates to the movement in the diverse that the federal government sees their role a little differently. i want to raise an issue that i have been raising since i have been here probably come to it a little honestly given that my father was a fire chief in a small community for about 25

years. the vast majority of land in the united states is covered by a volunteer fire force and about 96% of all firefighters are volunteers who don't get paid a dime, but we don't want them untrained either. i want to make sure that we have the tools that we need. some of the cools are these grants. i'm concerned in my state that the programs are difficult for volunteers to navigate. i'm wondering if you could respond to how you could fashion a grand program that could take these high costs. frequently the money doesn't go where it belongs and we applaud

that. i wonder what you can do for the firefighters to make the grants more accessible. >> i was a volunteer firefighter for most of my life before i came to washington. i am very cognizant of how difficult it can be to react with the requirements on a part-time basis and nag we have a responsibility in the federal government to ensure that the grant money is being used appropriately and we are

reducing or eliminating. we are absolutely committed to making the programs as efficient and easy as possible. we are evaluating the grant applications and the processing and all of the reporting of things you have to do with getting a grant. how can that be done by somebody potentially in the we hours of the night on an old computer with a poor internet connection? it would be easy to have a system where everyone interacts online. most in the u.s. and most communities don't have that infrastructure. we are committed to balancing both the oversight requirement and making sure that we

appropriately adjuteicate the findings and the things that our colleagues find when they interact with us in those manners. >> i think many times for the smaller agencies it becomes a non-starter and we see old development unless the community steps up as many in my state have to provide the resources. we should all be thinking about what that fire service looks like into the future. we are seeing fewer and fewer volunteers stepping up. we are seeing fewer and fewer folks willing to leave their work or they don't work where the fire service is in their community. this is going to be a challenge going forward. if we reduce the training support we receive from fema, if

we reduce incentives because nobody wants to fight a fire without training. we will be jeopardizing a critical piece of infrastructure that we relied on for a lot of years. i want to thank the chairman and the ranking member for holding this hearing and put on everybody's agenda the volunteer fire service and the challenges that we have. we serve the vast majority and they are covered by fire service. if we continue to maintain that first response, we need to fashion opportunities for the future. thank you, mr. chairman. >> we have so much waste throughout government. i have a great deal of admiration to look at the waste, but i find that continues and

that i don't see a lot of connection to actual reform. there is duplicate spending and yet it conditions. i will get back to what i said earlier. is there a mechanism in which we can enforce reform and make it work? do you have suggestions on how we can fix government on the standpoint of getting those who are watching over government to get policy implemented when we start with you. >> one of the things we found is that we will make a finding of question costs, for example against the subgrantee. they have the ability to wave our finding and not go against the state or the locality to recollect the money. we think that authority is being

used in a nation really is a counterproductive in that the states and the localities have no incentive to spent the money correctly. we will find an instance where a bit was not put out for competitive bidding. it was a contract or a contract where it was cost and percentage of cost. when you don't have the money at stake, it's quite easy to do. >> would you say this is common across agencies and not just fema, but other agencies with the same waiver system for making either mistakes on no bid contracts or paying for something inappropriate? would that be a bigger problem than just with fema? >> in the grant area, it's a significant problem and i was speaking directly about the administrator's authority to waive the costs and the findings, but in the work we

found those kinds of things to be problematic, although i have to say they are improving in the areas. >> in general part of the problem is a lot of these problems are so large and they are not easy to fix. it's not that folks don't want to fix them, but when fema was given all of the grants that used to be scattered after 2006, they had to figure out how to manage them and they didn't have the it systems to do them. they don't have a way to review them because they were all separate. implementing a system is challenging and complex. because of that, these issues hire sustained attention and

it's not until it is said over and over and over again and the congress said it over and over and over again. the agency starts paying attention and ded kaying resources that often times it changes, but it's not quickly. this is a good example. >> i like the idea on the pavers. when you finish up your reports, do you come up with conclusions on that or is that not your mandate to fix problems? >> we typically do not. we will recommend they try to get fixes and it's to the department if they change the way they parade. >> i think we used the waiver appropriately when we have

examples and we are made aware of examples from the ig or become aware on our own o cord of matters of intentional or malicious or fraud or waste where there cases where regulations were flaunted. that's more probably often than where we wave them. i would be happy to speak on specific examples. we are committed to adjudica adjudicating. we closed 93% and we were

focused on the audit findings over the course of the audits that led to that number. along the way we made changes and we make it to the training and the grantees on how to carry out the requirements and the way the programs and the regulations are structured and the way the larger policies that are being carried out by the way they are structured to make them more easily achieved by the grantees to make the findings fewer. >> they are aware of recent instances where there had been inspections where we have gone with the overhaul to reform the agency. >> we have in a member of areas, for example, and this is one off the top of my head.

we had done those and they showed 99.8% failure ready and the ability to talk to each other. we saw that the situation was not improved as a result of that. they mandated congressional reports and enhanced oversight as well as specific guide posts to get to interoperability. >> thank you. senator? >> i have a question regarding metrics and standards. fema obviously is the leader in

assessing the nation's tapability to respond to disasters and it's vital that they have end to end standards and assessments for how actions taken by federal, state, and local partners contribute to the goal. i think you did a good job in your testimony of laying out the threat and risk assessment that fema requires states to conduct as the state and national preparedness reports that come from those assessments. however i want to make sure that we're continuously evaluating the metrics. we had in place to make sure we are always making progress occurreds the goals. i want to start with you. how has fema integrated with the evaluation of progress towards

the national preparedness goal? and what recommendation specifically would you have for fema to improve the structure? >> one of the things we found is the metrics are what we call output-based versus the out come measures. that means we gave money to the improved products list. i think there has been effort to try to tie the purchases and the investment core capabilities. as i mentioned before, a lot of that is based on self-reported information by the state and that's not a bad thing. i think what we would like to see is a more quantitative assessment by capability of each level so we can compare that across jurisdiction and we have

to give out $1.6 billion. we are giving it out to the areas where we need it the most. i know you may not have looked into this, but if you have information, how would you assess fema's overall metrics structure? we look at the stakes and the grantees. that was a requirement to understand what does success look like and how you measure it and get there. it has to be specific time-bound and achievable. those kinds of things. what we found youthfully is that the metrics that the states were using were none of those things and fema had not been enforcing that. we tried to separate some of our

duties to not overlap. >> avoiding duplication is the goal. do you think there is room for fema to improve and if so, how? i am referring to metrics for fema's individual programs and metrics for how they feed into the preparedness goal. >> thank you, senator. i can start with saying with a temporal caveat. i don't disagree with anything my colleagues here said. they are describing a situation that was accurate in 2009 which is why we developed the system that is put in place. the system where we are trying to achieve the goal. there was no tell us link an tweej the out wuts that the grants were achieving. the states had individual homeland security strategies and

a plan for what they were trying to achieve. there was no overarching over all of those. you had 56 different strategies for the state's territories and the district. there was no linkage and you couldn't compare. separately, there were national preparedness programs like the target capability list where there was an idea suggested by mr. curry where there was a common set of metrics and every jurisdiction should be able to do this much and everybody was working towards that. the problem is they were divorced and there was no link an between the two. they were used to achieve the cape anlts aabilities and to th senator's examples earlier, there was a small community that we would of new york city or chicago by that formulation by the standard targets.

we developed an interconnected national preparedness system that we used to define the things. the management system is the language. those are the words we used to commonly describe the resources. and then the frameworks and the grands are how we put those together. what you hear so much about, we know that risk and we can't look at the risk to wisconsin and michigan and kentucky and missouri and north dakota and say those are individual risks. there is a level risk to the nation. they do aggregate. if we can look at what's important and valuable and the highest level of risk, the greatest threat to a community and help that build, that's the out come we are trying to achieve using the resources and the people and the training and the development and time hacks,

they can do a job in a certain amount of time against the threats they have. that's the whole system. i'm happy to provide more detail and we can look at the nation and aggregate the capabilities and apply them anywhere. we can take the resources and by we, i mean the nation can take the resources from the west to the east and come together and leverage what we have built. there is not enough money to ever deal with everybody. >> is there a formal presentation.

>> we will discuss what we will try to do and have constant communication with the agency or component involved. at the end there will be what we call an exit conference where we describe what it is we find and discuss what the recommendations will be. we write a draft report that goes to the component and they will take a look and decide whether or not it's accurate and whether the recommendations make sense and if they accept those or not. that gets turned into a final report that is issued given to congress. >> they will respond in writing to your findings? >> correct. >> you presented to the head of fema. they will hear an oral presentation? >> typically not the head of fema. it is typically somebody who is the subject matter expert within whatever component we are looking at. i brief the secretary on the

significant reports. i typically try to have regular meetings with the com ponentent heads to discuss what work we are doing. >> i guess your impression, either of you or any of you on -- i understand it has to be adverse aerial, but in the end does it end up that way? we will always be independent and i say i am no use if i'm not independent. that being said, we want to be able to work with the component and listen and understand what the challenges are before we make the recommendations. it doesn't do any good to have a recommendation that will be rejected by the component. there is lots of disagreement, but we think that's an appropriate level of engagement.

>> i think we learned a lot and thank you all for your testimony. the record will remain open until 5:00 for member who is wish to commit additional questions. the hearing is adjourned.