american womanhood, transforming society. joining us to talk about women's rights in 1968 are debra spar, former college president and author of "wonder women: sex, power, and the quest for perfection." and a syndicated columnist and senior fellow at the ethics policy center the in washington, d.c. she's also the author of the upcoming book "sex matters: how modern feminism lost touch with science, love, and common sense." watch 1968 america in turmoil, women's rights on c-span's washington journal and on american history tv on c-span3. the head of the federal emergency management agency, brock long, testified before the house appropriations homeland security subcommittee last week about his agency's 2019 budget request. texas congressman john carter

chaired the hearing. >> good morning. we're going to call this meeting to order. this hearing to order. we are very pleased this morning to welcome the administrator of the federal emergency management agency, brock long, to discuss fema's fiscal year 2019 budget request. administrator, welcome. we're glad to have you here. i want to start by thanking you for your leadership in overseeing not just fema but the entire federal response to the record level of disaster activity this past year. congress has now passed three supplementals providing nearly $50 billion for disaster relief fund. this is for response and recovery from three catastrophic events. i'd like to hear from you today on how recovery efforts are

going and what additional resources you think fema will need in the coming months to continue to support the long-term recovery. fy-'19 budget for fema is $11 billion. the request proposes reductions to existing fema grant programs while at the same time requesting $522 million for a new grant program that hasn't been authorized. at least not as yet. i'd like to hear from you why you propose these cuts, particularly in the current threat environment, and what the new grant programs intend to achieve. i understand fema also released a new strategic plan which outlines your vision for the agency. i hope you'll discuss how you plan to implement this strategy and how fy-'19 requests support these efforts. at this time, i'd like to recognize my distinguished

ranking member for any remarks she may make. >> good morning, administrator long. welcome to your second appearance before the subcommittee. the time you appeared was on the heels of the damaging hurricanes and fires which prompted emergency supplemental spending bills. we're now eager to spend time with you to get your perspective on fema's budget request, your ongoing response and recovery activities and the challenges that lie ahid. i know this has been a difficult time for your agency. you had only been at fema for a few months when we not only experience d the most damaging hurricane season, but wildfires which devastated large swaths of california. we want to help support the efforts of fema's p personnel and we want to make sure their programs are working well to support recovery efforts.

this is particularly true for puerto rico. because of the level devastation on the island and the fiscal challenges it was already facing. we must not forget the families and other survivors who months after the disaster, are still struggling wiing to rebuild and must remember this disaster occurred on american soil and that the people affected are americans. i look forward to a productive discussion. yield back. >> thank you. we are joined by miss lloyd, the ranking member of the full committee. i'll use you when you comments you wish to make. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. and i appreciate your having this hearing. and thank you, ranking member allen, for holding this hearing. you last testified before the subcommittee last november. on the hurricane supplemental

request. thau thank you for your hard work assisting the states and u.s. territories, many of which are still recovering months later. this morning, we'll hear your justification for the fy 19 fema budget request, which i find lackluster at bust. you proposed to eliminate several programs and to severely cut others with devastating implications, particularly to new york. for example, your budget request would eliminate the national domestic prepareness consortium which has trained 2 million first responders. the emergency food and shelter grant program, which provides shelter, food and water fehr families and communities in crisis. your budget request would also notably reduce the national predisaster mitigation fund by

61 million as we saw in the wake of superstorm sandy and hurricanes harvey, maria, responding to and recovering from a natural staser oftens lot more than investments and mitigation measures. in 2017 alone, there were 50 major disaster declarations. 20 of which occurred after you were confirmed. we can all agree that communities need to be b proactive in mitigating their own vul ner babnerablilitievuln request in my judgment sends the b wrong signal by cutting an essential program so deeply and cut result in higher recovery costs to the federal government and communities hit by disasters. your budget would also threaten the safety of our communities by significantly decreasing emergency management performance grants, by 70.7 million.

port security grants by 63.6 million. public transportation security assistance by 63.6 million. the state homeland security grant program by 117.6 million. the urban areas security initiative grant program by 117.6 million. with threats of violence and terrorism on the rise, these programs are essential to terror targets like new york to help state and local law enforcement protect our communities. simply put, our communities cannot strengthen their programs when support from their federal partner is inconsistent is to inadequate. administrator long, i look forward to a productive discussion this morning about how to best build, mitigate the impacts of future disasters and

keep our communities safe from violence and terrorism. thank you, again, for being here today. >> thank you. > >> we do have your written report. in the file, but we would like to give us a summation and what you think we need to hear. >> thank you. and members of the committee, it's great to be here again today. i think we're all here in the spirit of improvement. and trying find ways to make the nation more prepared. i work towards it er every day and i look at this budget question. wurng it was not informed by the 2017 because of the process that puts forward, but i do look at this budget as an opportunity to serve as an initial down payment on a strategic plan that i feel strongly about and the way forward that i want to talk to you about to obtain your

support. obviously, it was the biggest zdisaster year that we've seen n our history. 47 million merps, 15%, we now estimate of the population was impacted in some way, shape or form. to date, i want to thank you guys for the three supplementals. it's been a tremendous help, but it's not that i need more money in some cases as much i need new authorities. for example, disaster recovery housing is not a well designeded program. i need more grants authorities to be able to provide governors an opportunity to be able to control their own destiny. but what we've put forward so far as a result of 2017, we've obligated close to $22 billion from california to the virgin islands. 11 billion has gone to the commonwealth of puerto rico already. these recoveries, infrastructure is not built overnight and the recoveries are not going to be

done overnight. we're doing to be in these communities as we progress through. so we learned a lot of major lessons. as i said, i need granting authority to fix housing. we have to find ways to streamline fragmented recovery. funding comes from 17 dimpblt agencies and it's confuse tog a governor. hud makes an announcement. one of the largest grant that is the agency's proactively pupt putt down, but it's confuse tog a governor on how to thut youth liz fema, hud and funding that comes from these others to do the graeltest good. we've got a will the of work to do the greatest good and build more mitigation and recovery efforts as well. we also, i'm asking for authorities to increase state management costs. so it's not just the grants that we need to provide to state and local governments to kick start programs. but the management costs is probably the most beneficial tool they can have. right now, for example, on a

disaster, we provide 3.4% in management costs. based on the total of public stance dollars that we obligate. ed. that needs to rise to 12%. that gives a state an account to hire labor or firms to help with staff augmentation or expertise they don't have. because i believe that prepa preparedness is efb's responsibility from the citizens to the governor's to the state's. as threats change, we can't do it all. we can't continue to fund a programs in their entirety. we have to have an honest conversation about is there too much of a gap between the federal government and what tate and local government rs are doing here to have that conversation. but based on the major lessons learned that we had, based on comments of reaching out to stakeholders, we took 2300 comments from staff members and stake hoholders.

i'm the question, what do you want fema to be good at ? we did a trend analysis based on what we got going back and came up with three goals. one as i've said before, goal one, build a culture of preparedness. our citizens are a true first responder. how do we open up more to our citizens and provide them to do training like cpr. the red cross has a statistic that one in our will do cpr in our lifetime. you're the first responder after an active shooter or tornado. i'm lining the budget, my asset, to begin tackling the robust plan. so for example, under building a culture of preparedness, the grant that's in the budget would help me to start addressing evolving issues because some of the grant funding is tied to prok

prokimra, older 9/11 style attacks which would happen today, but it doesn't give you much freedom to tackle new threats such as soft target active shooter events or cybersecurity. so these grants would help me to build a culture of preparedness. the other thing is we got invest but also incentivise the state and local governments to pass building codes. the cuts, with it's also been in there i'm asking for a fix to do mitigation up front in a much larger amount rath ethan on the back end. so, i'm not ivooen sure 40, 506 million even makes a difference when you look at the scheme of how we need to harden our capabilitie capabilities. i'm the biggest believer in insurance as well when it comes

to people and self-insured cities. we've got to close the gap on insurance under that building a culture of preparedness. i want to work with you to do so. the second goal is readying the nation for catastrophic disasters like new madrid earthquakes r or earthquakes in california. we have a lot of work to do and we have to bolster state and local capabilities to do their own commodities when it comes to emergency life sustaining xh commodities and not just been depend ong fema to be providing everything. i'm is not sure we're that good. that we can get the there after a no notice event. that's the best way response can work. so underneath that, there's things we're looking for. i'm worried about the wall of work that is coming to my agency as a result of what we just went

through. if you look at 2017, my agency picked up a new b ooempbt every three days. every three days. i need staff members and we're asking for that in h budget this budget. i need, we're asking for 41 staff. internally. because i can reimburse everybody else, but not my own agent is agent is i. i'm worried about the occupational capacity to respond to the congressional increase to processing paperwork to get money out down the road. so i'm asking for a down payment in this budget to help me bolster my staff internally as well then maybe the next year, i'll continue to see the ramifications of what we've seen. then finally, reduce the complexity of fema's goal three. i'm the agency's worst. you know, the biggest critic of the agency. i know there are things that we can do. there are policies i want to strike town. there are things i want to clear up and within this goal, there's

specific budget requests for grants management modernization. i inherited an agency that has ten different i.t. systems to manage ten different grants. why not just one? it fake takais money and understanding to how to consolidate those efforts and i want to streamline it and make it simple as well as streamline the disaster survivor and grant there is grant experience. there's been a lot of misunderstanding about puerto rico and the recovery as well. recovery has been ongoing since day one. a lot of emergency response and recovery projects are in place. i was in puerto rico last week. met with the governor and we are now starting to, we finalized the dialogue on 4-28 to move forward on how to build a more resilient puerto rico. it's the best way to move forward. not just for puerto rico, but for communities in the future

because we're giving you a budget. it's driven recovery. it says how does the state of california want their recovery to go as a result of this wildfire so we're not back again. governor, you know best, local communities, so let's design that outcome driven recovery now up front and let's work towards that. if you manage that budget, governor, very aggressively, whatever's left over, you can keep and put in and incentivise predisaster projects you would like to see that were not factored into the original project work sheets. because right now, if we attack puerto rico the old traditional way, we would be writing thousands of projects work sheets that would get reversioned year over year or over. i'm not sure we would be working toward a common recovery outcome. so we were able to put that into place. it's not something you want to rush. it's something that you want to be very calculated and

deliberate about. and the federal emergency management agency has no incentive to see anybody fail in recovery. i do not want to be back in these fixes infrastructure again. we can't afford to rebuild the way the infrastructure was before the event. knocks them out. we have to do better and factor in before and after all these events. i'm here in spirit of improvement. thank you. that concludes. my comments. >> thank you. time five minutes. for everybody to know. and i want to thank everybody for being here. speaks well of you. because this is a go home day. and we've got a full house. i'm really proud of everybody being here. i'll start off then -- congress

has provided more than 49.5 billion to the disaster relief fund in emergency supplemental funding to address the requirements from last year's unprecedented disaster activity. can you give us an update on recovery efforts for harvey, irma and maria and i've got other questions. >> yeah, so each of these disaster, you can't compare. it's apples to oranges based on how these communities were impacted. whether they're located. how strong was the infrastructure before the storm as well as the liquidity issues in the budgets and how they were managed. each one is dramatically different. out of the 22 billion we've obligated toup up to this point, that number changes every day. up to this point, 11 billion has been placed towards puerto rico and roughly 5 billion towards harvey. it's largely because of the type

of damages that we see and the types of infrastructure we're trying to fix. but these recoveries are ongoing. and puerto rico specifically, i'm about to become the largest employer. we've already done close to 1500 local hires and what we're trying to do there is not only set forward an outcome driven recovery for what it's going to look like next, but i'm having to rebuild an entire arm of emergency management at the commonwealth level as well as the local level. which is why we're taking the initiative to do local hires. we're training them. qualifying them in the fema qualification system, so we ultimately leave a very strong capability in emergency management there for years to come. when it comes to texas, yeah, we have major challenges. you know when it comes to housing. we are going to have challenges in housing puerto rico. which is the most frustrate iin aspect of recovery. where i need your help to change. we need granting authority.

if i could give governor abbott for example, granting authority. he could take funding from me and do housing the way he sees best. he could buy tent cities. he can do direct construction. buy a travel trailer. do a manufactured house and doesn't have to adhere to my bulky law but, his state laws and he could do it much quicker and efficiently than i could. but right now, the way it has to work, i have to do an interservice governmental agreement with the governor and he has to follow my process, which slows things down. and we have got to fix it because i've never heard of a recovery housing mission that's ever sought praise from anybody. which is a real problem. there's a lot that's going on, but i have thousands of people in the field right now. 65% of my agency is still deployed and it's not these four events we're working. i'm working disasters in 35 states and local territories have been b impacted this year.

i couldn't be more proud of my staff and what they're going through and the sacrifices they've put forward and they continue to serve other. >> i agree. the staff has done a really fantastic job. but estimates for hurricane maria beyond fy 18 and the california wildfires were not available when the last supplemental came out. do we have a better estimate for those zas es now? will another be needed to address those needs? if so, can we expect to receive another request for funding to spoth thedisasters and will tha request cover the entire life of the disaster for hurricane maria or should we expect multiple supplemental requests. >> so right now, you know, it's hard to project how much it's going to cost. some of the initials like for puerto rico, some of the initial estimates, total damage for puerto rico range between 40 and 50 billion. as we start to look at the

levels of damage and the infrastructure. here fwen, that number would kould change as we dig deeper into the damage assessments and understand what needs to be done to make it resilient. as far as requesting another supplemental, we're just not there yet, but i'm not going to allow my agency to get too close before we have to ask for your support, so we will maintain and double down on communication to the congress as well as omb when it comes to a critical point of wepg we're going to run out of funding. >> if you got other supplementals coming, which i would assume you do, but maybe you don't assume that. in the last, we had requested, we didn't have information to give us the information we needed to see the picture. and so if you're going to do other supplementals, that's why i ask that question, on wildfires and maria, we didn't have estimates.

i know that you've flooded the place with people making estimates. you should have a better picture now than before. i can tell you when i was in houston, i was with some building contractors and they said it was 186,000 of remodel estimated to be in houston right now. and in a market that builds 50 to 100,000 homes a year, they can't even build the homes for lack of labor, they can't go in the home build iing, but for la of laeber and how are we ever going to have enough labor to do these lesser jobs because a framing contract eor look ining remodel looking at a new home has no choice there. he's going to build a new home. makes more money off oit auffar. easier because he doesn't have walls and thimgs he has to tear out. so it's going to be a real

challenge. it may not be fema's job b to direct, but that's things we got to fix. >> yes, sir. >> this new plan putting in the hand of the governor, which at least, not governor, i would like to see that. may be a good idea. sounds like a good idea, but u turning the ship of state is a slow, tedious process. >> mr. chairman, you know, when it comes to reducing disaster costs, i think we need to look at the categories of damage that fema pays for. in some cases, i scratch my head as to why fema reimburses state and local governments for built building in contents that could be picked up by private insurance companies. why are we paying to fix facilities that could be insured? that right there would save a tremendous, would save billions of tax paying dollars. and would help fema to further

work with solid public private sector partnerships in the insurance arena. which would reduce the need for supplemental requests down the road. when you get to these big, big disasters, our data would suggest that paying for public buildings and contents uninsured or self-insured, one of the greatest expenses that we have is taxpayers. and i question why are we doing that. >> i think that's a good question to ask. that may require some legislation at this level. as you view it, have conversations with members of congress about it. >> yes, sir. >> because if we're going to have to write legislation to redirect things, that's what we do for a living. >> yes, sir. >> well, i'll yield now. >> i think in opening statement some of the comments you've made

to some degree you've already answered some of the questions that i have, but i'd like to ask them any way and give you an opportunity to either add r or to elaborate on what your efforts and your needs are. last fall, the president issued major disaster declarations for areas of california that were ravaged by wildfires. this came on the heels of several fire management stan assistance declarations for california in the proceeding days. fema has already obligated $230 million in fire management assistance grants for fy 2018 and these grants are funded out of the zdisaster relief fund bae account. is there sufficient funding in the disaster relief fund base account to provide fire management grants for all eligible recipients and with regard to the drf base, is the budget request enough if we have a fire and hurricane season

similar to last year's? >> so, slept question. and it's my understanding. one, mother nature dictates how much fire management assistance grants we're going to have to put out and this past year was an unbelievable year. two, the drf as you guys know, is kind of dictated by the bca and the formula put forward. my concern with wildfires and what we saw this year was the volume of wildfires can deplete the drf towards the end of the fiscal year as he head into major hurricane season, which requires us to come to you for supplemental requests. now, the omnibus bill as i understand it, did fix some of the problems that many of the governors were having problems with when there were fires occurring on federal lands, which is not fema's responsibility. our role is to make sure that a fire doesn't get out of hand and become a major disaster declaration similar to what california put forth or was

impacted by. and i think that the insurance industry looks at california as probably the worst wildfire on the globe. that we've seen. it's one of the most disturbing events that i've ever been a part of. >> the bill for the hurricanes provided up tow 4.9 billion dollar disaster loans. these loans would help local and territorial governments with the costs associated with operating their governments. given they are face iing a lost revenues. in addition, 300 million was provided for making loans to puerto rico and the u.s. virgin island to pay for the nonfederal cost share of projects. my understanding is that the progress on making these loans have been dispointingly slow and i understand that to date, only 54 million in loans have been

made to municipalities in puerto rico. and i have a series, three questions here. can you update us on the progress of these loans and why the application process takes so long and for puerto rico, are fema and treasury working on a long-term estimate for the need of these loans? and going forward, fema and the department of the treasury be able to ensure those loans more rapidly? >> yes, ma'am. thank you for the question. because fls a will the of confusion around this. yes, fema does administer the community zdisaster loan progra. and not to belabor the point, because of the liquidity issues we were facing, treasury has stepped in to help us understand the situation, but also for omb to understand the situation around how much liquidity puerto rico government actually has and it's my understanding that when

puerto rico's budget, what they have currently, reaches a critical low point of $800 million, then the loans can begin to be placed and puerto rico can draw down against them. so that was, that was basically what the deal between treasury and the dogovernor was worked o in puerto rico. but i can come back in write in for specifics. >> okay, i would appreciate it. >> and mr. moore, we have time for a second round? >> i don't know. >> don't know? >> i'll anticipate we do and yield back. >> thank you very much and thank you for your presentation. administrator long, i understand that fema and the department of homeland security are looking to change the way risk is calcul e calculated for metropolitian areas. this could impact the allocation of grant funding in both the

state, homeland security grant program and the urban areas security initiative. i'm aware that the threat is changing and we need to that i can that into account. my concern is that rather than relying on a robust analysis of threat, vul ner bability and consequences, the risk analysis will be tweaked to fit what is only a perception of the evolving threat. that would defeat the purpose of having a rigorous risk methodology at all. so has any independent third party outside of fema r or department of homeland security looked at the proposed changes to the risk methodology and do you think it might be valuable to have an independent review from the gao, some of the source of expertise before you change the method for calculating risk? >> sure. ma'am, i really appreciate the question because i don't want fema doing anything in a vacuum

that becomes detrimental to anybody. so let me be clear. i'm a believer incommunication. when it comes to third party review, we rely on reaching out to the the international association of emergency managers. i don't have a problem with engaging gao. you know, as well, because we want to do this right. the problem with the grant system is that i don't think that the federal government's ever done a good job of measuring return on investment or being able to, and i don't believe that the old risk formula was a formula at all. and so we have to be able to build a defensible formula that allows numerous communities access to you know, to funding to help them kick start recovery. when it comes to cost share and grants, b i don't believe it's fema's place to fully supplement a program through its cradle to grave life cycle.

b i believe state and local governments need to have skin in the game and i believe that these perhaps should be designed to kick start initiatives and help communities to graduate their budgets to be able to continue going down the road of a robust program in the future. >> well, i think that's an issue that is really critical. that we work together on. >> yes, ma'am. i understand your point of view and in some instances, i would agree and some, i probably would not. >> sure. >> i just wabt to mention one other program. the non-profit security grants in the state homeland security grant program. when secretary nielsen testified before the subcommittee, i asked her about a new program. i thought to include in the most recent omnibus. funding to non-profits located outside of areas designated for the urban areas security initiative will help those organizations improve security at a time when hate groups are

on the rise across the country and communications. largen and small. according to recent reports, by the southern poverty law center and the adl, neonazi groups grew by more than 20% in the past year. antisemitic incidents rose by more than 90% in 2017 alone. that's why i was so pleased to hear secretary nielsen state her intention to focus dh's efforts on hate groups widely. including white supremacy groups. this $10 million in funding will really help organizations like some of those in my district proactively combat the changing face of hate threat and violence. can you tell us when you expect the grant notice to be released and when doung the funding will go out? >> i don't have an answer on the timing. we would follow back on. follow back up with you, but i

would agree that this money, the nongovernmental organizations that are active in disasters are incredibly important. one of the most important pi pillars in the whole community. we depend on them. we specifically depend on them to do thins that we are bound by regulation to keep us from being nimble in some cases. so we look forward to put iting this money to work and we'll get back to you on the time frames. >> thank you. >> thank you very much and thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you for your presentation. you seem so well informed. we are very honored to have a person of your caliber take on this responsibility. the chances of, the challenges are just incredible and i know we discussed puerto rico, so i won't bring that up today, but i hope you really stay on it. because the tragedy was overwhelming. when you're up in that hospit helicopter and you see all the homes without roofs and the electric grid and the water and the food and the jobs, so thank

you for your leadership and i hope you really stay on it. and don't forget the st. john's as well. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> mr. taylor. >> thank you, mr. chairman. appreciate you and your service. please give our best that's to everyone under you. lot ts of challenges. i'm happy to hear some of your comments about streamlining the sagt and also i want to touch on puerto rico briefly. i was swrjust down there last weekend and understanding that there are, as we talked about earlier about deferred maintenance and issues with puerto rico themselves have had that were not prepared, if you will, but obviously we still have to go down there and help out to make sure we're doing everything we can to make them more resilient and have you know, that they have a more robust system. i was speaking with the mayor down there and he was, it's my

understanding that the municipalities will spend their money of course to fix infrastructure and then get reimbursed. however, they don't have a lot of money, so they run out and it's not fixed or finished and we have another upcoming hurricane season. so just curious, what's happening to make things more efficient and is there way to do so to make sure the infrastructure is fixed before the next hurricane season. >> so, congressman, great question. just to be honest, there's no way we fix the infrastructure before next hurricane season. what we're trying to do is proactively with money management and making sure project work sheets are being done. we're embedded staff with the 78 mayors and we have embedded staff. along time ago to be able to work with them directly to knave gait, but we're in the train the trainer process as i said earlier.

and that's my army going out and helping these jurisdictions kna navigate. when it comes to the infrastructure, you've got to remember, for example, a lot of the power grid wasn't functioning bf the storms. you guys gave me the authority to fix that. we're putting temporary roadway systems in until roads can be where he built. so, we just have a long way to go. we're going to be there for years. now what we're doing to get ready for hurricane season, we're rewriting emergency operations plans for 78 jurisdictions. on june 14, our efforts to write the plans, train upon the plans is going to be exercised on june 14 with a full squal exercise. i'm exponentially increasing the amount of food, water and supplies that we have on the

island. and then we're going to run through plans of distribution. for commodities. and the commodities that we roll out during the exercise, we're going to allow the 78 municipalities to keep so they can build their own levels of pe pairedness on a daily basis. >> on the efficiency of reimburseme reimbursement, they get money back to be able to do that wha they need to do is is that, is that being looked at i guess to make sure they get reimbursed faster? >> igt and in some cases, we may enter into expedited processes to get funding to them. if there's liquidity issues or the lack of funding that's there. we did that in texas. in numerous locations across the country. but i'd be happy to respond to you in writing on how we're actually manage iing the money processes! is fee ma looking at new technologies to get products faster? you mentioned housing, 3-d printing housing and things like

that? >> there's a $124.6 million ask in the budget for analytics investment because we've got to do a better job of understanding the interdependsies with our own agency, but how we interact with the 16 critical infrastructure sectors to make shaure we're making the right decisions an putting money down the lest bbe we can. >> politically, there's been some hits about reducing programs that have been hit with things like sea level rise. there's sea level size so, in terms of resilience and helping communities, is that something and let me say there are a lolt of programs in the government that are intended, but thant work well. in your mention of a culture of

preparedness, are we working with resiliency in areas like miami and hampton roads and louisiana for sea level rise? >> sure, i had a conversation the other day with a talented forecaster by the name of chris and we were discussing the ocean seems to be rising about one inch every ten years. obviously, we have to start accounting for that, and our plan embodies this. so that's why i'm asking for predisaster mitigation up front. ta there's a mechanism to help communities start to elevate roadway systems and structure in anticipation of sea level rise. what we can do is ready the nation for catastrophic

disasters, but a lot of the flooding issue we anticipate in other 30% of if flooding that we see aacross the country is because the country. and building codes. my agency gets to deal with the congress quenss or the lack there of. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> mr. bryce. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome admin strart long. happy to see you back here tat subcommittee to con grate lcon grate late you on your good work and acknowledge a fellow north carolinan. >> headed there today.

maybe i'll ride with you. >> well, speaking of that, i have only one shot here, but i want to ask a couple of questions and hopefully we can deal with both of them. because they have to deal with part of the broad er system. national service volunteers play ing a role in increasing disaster relief and rovry. then the work of the center at unc chapel hill. the coastal resilience center, which i understand you'll be addressing on monday, which we're glad to know. both of these are the problem in the president's budget. i want to ask you about the value of these aspects of your support system. first, national service. you know well that all hands on deck are required as a north

carolinan. we did form a new national service unit. the fema core in 2012. 4,000 volunteers were involved in 2017 alone in relief efforts. what do these volunteers do to help ensure the communities? why on earth would the administration zero out service? are there any other areas that exist to slol tiers that congress should address. but i'm co-chair of the national service caucus. i've seen this in north carolina, so i'm baffled by the budget and in encourage d by th support they've, volunteers have offered in our national recovery capacity.

>> sure. >> b obviously taking this job, taking this job, you know, i became administrator in a tough budget environment. unfortunately, cuts have to be made. i've got multiple training facilities. i have emi. i have sister for domestic repairedness. dedicated to training. i have to, i need to concentrate somewhat on my own shop within fema. and then fema core is a great program. it provides a jumping on point for people to get involved in management. we try to do that. but -- it's a tough, tough calls

have to be made. when it comes to, let me say this. it's not just providing money to state and local governments. i think 2017 should be a reflection point for state legislatures and officials to reevaluate how much their staffing and funding their emergency management programs. i cannot continue to supplant nehme in the them in their entirety. my experience, my general fund budget was somewhere between five and $7 million to run a state emergency management agency. during the height of the season this year, fema was spending that in an hour. it's spend many less than two hours. there's too much of a gap.

by introducing fe na teams. i'm ready to take the staff i have out of my offices and out of headquarters and move them into the state agencies which we're embarking on this week. we're beginning to phase this out this week where we're putting full time staff in to help them overcome the planning gaps they may have when it comes to staffing. it's not just funding. it's getting my people out. but i also said earlier, the greatest thing congress can do to help the state ss increase the management costs from 3.34% to 12% and we can use zas e relief funding to help them with their staff and capabilities. that's the way aapproach it.

>> i'm going to ask the administrator to submit a direct answer about the role of national service volunteers in 2017 and otherwise. and also to answer the question i was going to ask, had there been sufficient time, about the role of the coastal resilience center. >> i'll yield that time. this coastal resilience center. as i say, you're going to be there on monday. i'm sure you're fwoipg to be thanking them for what they've done. it's my understanding their storm surge mod ling played a large role in the coast guard's decisions about where to place people. i wonder if you could elaborate. tell us more about the center's

work and what are your thoughts and elim natting the funding for this. >> gavin smith, who runs the program, is a good friend of mine. he is a very subject matter expert. it's a tough budget environment. should fema be funding universities. you know, and how many of these programs should we fund nationwide. does storm surge modeling. if that's the case, if this is duply kaitive, if it's not needed, then you need to document that. >> i'm not saying it's not needed. just saying for me, i can't fund it all. >> is it redundant? >> i don't know enough about the program. >> i think somebody should look at this.

this is siloed. it looks to me like. it's siloed and you're talking about budgets that aren't directly in your purview, but it's certainly budgets you should care about. it seem ifs you care, if it's important to your work, you should say so. we need some insurance that within the administration, these conversations are going on. something as important as the work of fema and something that we can safely eliminate, we need to rationale. >> i don't know the ins and outs. i'm going there to learn. to be honest. i appreciate everybody that's trying to put forward better information to fema and we have to be able to utilize it, but here again, i only have so much funding. and i have to make hard decisions and we have to make hard decisions so, i would be happy to respond to you in

writing once i lerner more about the coastal resiliency center. i'd be happy to respond in writing. what about we found. >> good. i'll appreciate that and also more specifics about the national service input. >> sure. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. >> you're, welcome, mr. price. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. brock, thank you for being here today. trz thank you for your honest and clear answers. real quick. i'm from gulfport, mississippi. fourth district. one thing you can relate to that is hurricane katrina. we were ground zero. and we took it right on the chin. it took almost a decade for us to you know, be comfortable in

our recovery. the one thing the gulf coast not just in mississippi, but in coastal areas, any place that lives on the water, the majority of the population in america, that relies on insurance. the nfip program. in mississippi alone, there's 64 policies. in 2013, congress tried to improve the nfip program only to basically you know, cause a lot of unforseen problems. with that were the drastic increases on homeowners. overnight, they were going to see their rates go up double, triple, quadruple. that was a big concern and congress acted swiftly.

i think the term was unintended consequences is what many of us used on the floor. the bill was tied to ore things such as the restore act which was the delivery of the bp oil spill and a two-year ser fas transportation extension. the fact we were going to fipd a longer term solution because prior to, there was 16 or more short-term reauthorizations and obviously, those reauthorizations and the fear of it expiring and you can want get a mortgage if you're required to have flood insurance, so it was affecting home ownership, building, economic development. just uncertainty and stability. the house has passed a bill. it has some good reforms. it's going to cause disrulgs.

there's not a private sector market now in many areas, so tig thing is can you tell me, has the fact that we haven't reaustr authorized the program, it looks like we're constantly ceremonying for must pass legislation. is that having an effect on your agency now? >> those helped us in debt forgivement. every time we have a massive event, fema can't even pay the sbes bill anymore. so we need to make the nfip program financially solvent. i don't have all answers on that, by sometimes, i think we may by be atablging it in the wrong manner. so, for example, any house in the united states are flood. why are we just focused on these flood zones and what we learned

from harvey is thousands of homes can flood outside of those zones that are not in there. particularly if street drains are not well maintained or the built environment changes the flood zone quicker than the mapping changes. we're working until there's a legislation fission, i believe we've set some of the taxpayers over $700 million recently with getting them to back us up. the thing about nfip, why is flood insurance not connected to every insurance policy in america? why is there not an all hazards insurance policy every time you buy a house? reduce the cost, spread it out. it becomes more affordable. i don't know why we have la car.

you can choose or choose not to wi it if you're outside a special flood hazard zone. say iing can we get to an all hazards based insurance package for a homeowner. >> sounds good to me. i want to be sensitive with my time. it is a fly out day. thank you, mr. brock. i have several questions related to mapping on the mississippi gulf coast compare today my neighbors and i'll submit for the record. >> thank you. >> thank you. thanks for being here. we have a lot of people who ask questions, but seems to me you're pretty well respected based on your actions. good manager is only as good as

his team, too. you're one of the most important agencies i think in the government because you protect the american people and our critical infrastructure. from a host of threats. it's one of the area agencies which the public hopes to never have to deal with. when you see a fema van, you know something terrible has happened. over your lifetime facing tragedy and basically saw that severe tragedy as you said, last year was probably the last year anything fema has had. is that correct? >> i would argue yes. >> i think you delivered 194 let liters of water and generators to those affected by the four major hurricanes. just focus on one issue today

and that's port security dwragr. i respect the port of baltimore and i've been involved in a lot of port security issues and reports on that. i'm discouraged by the requests for the program. this was included in the original department of homeland security authorization. this is cleeach year, america's generate 4.6 trillion revenue and employ 23 million people throughout the country. now u with the expansion of the panama canal, with we can expect to seymour of an increase. according to the brookings center for 21st century security and intelligence, it would take a small attack on our ports to grind u.s. commerce to a halt within days. that's the need for port security cannot be understated. for this reason, we need to protect our maritime infrastructure. the port security grant program

assists large and small ports with chemical. biological, nuclear and explosive detepntiodetention. it can implement transportation work rer information card systems. my question is i have three first in your opinion, do you believe that the port security grant program has been b a valuable tool in combatting terrorism. to me, it implies that our ports and their vul ner bableties. three, double our ports are being built r for sea levels and storms. >> so, when it comes to port security it's my understanding that we built a baseline cape bability. what we don't do a good job of when it cops to the return on investments is what point do we build that baseline and have a hand off to the port authorities and to the state and local

governments and should grants start to graduate and reduce over time as we build a baseline capability or just keep continuing to grow this budget and the grants indefinitely and basically i become the person that supplements these grants in entirety. what happen ss tomorrow the threat changes. i have to find new money to address this problem or that problem. i think this is one of those fwra grants where we build a tremendous capablcapability, bu where's hand you have to the port authorities to the state and local governments. as well as the private sector that used those as well. >> in my opinion, it's based on which port the management of the different ports. that's why in the beginning, i talk about how important ports are. trillions of dollars. just to shut down when we had a strike at the port in california. this is a tremendous industry with a lot of vulvulnerability.

a lot of drugs coming in. i don't think any port has the manpower to deal with the drug coming in. especial i think the federal government has to step in in ports. >> thank you, sir. >> thank you. really appreciate your work. especially appreciate your clearly earnest and sin veer stir to get the money out the door to front load the funding for laster victims to put it in the hands of property owners to take the best care of their property. i'm convinced your approach and attitude is the heart of the reason donald trump was elected president because feel the government is so badly broken that they elected this guy from outside of the entire process as

a business man to just get thipthip things fixed. i would encourage you as someone who's seems to leave you an opening, just do it. i mean, get to yes. i've heard you say that before. we had a very good-meaning governor. i know that you've instructed your staff on repeated occasions don't tell you the reasons you can't do something. tell you the reasons you can do it. i encourage you to just be bold and assertive and to get to yes. if the law looks like it's ambiguous or gives you an opening, just do it. you've been terrific. when it comes to requests that we as texans have submitted to you, and i asked you to extend hotel stays for disaster victims, you've done so. concur that extreme circumstances existed to contracting could be expedited. you did so. but there are a couple other really small fixes that you've got authority right now to do

that would make a dramatic difference for homeowners who -- thousands of whom are living on the second floor of their homes in my district with all the sheet rock torn out on the first floor. they have -- because many times they were denied rental assistance. if you go to the fema website and log on to the fema.gov website and ask, what specific items are covered by housing assistance, it tells you this housing assistance includes reimbursement for short-term hotel expenses, money to rent a place to live for up to 18 months while your home is being repaired. the immediate question the homeowner has is does my income matter? well, the law says no, it doesn't matter. in fact, your website says, question, does my income need to be under a certain dollar amount to qualify? answer, no. fema's housing assistance program is available regardless of income to anybody who suffered damage or losses. but that's not the way the

bureaucrats in fema are administering the program. they are denying rental assistance to thousands of my constituents who have sunk all their money in their home. they're not wealthy. they've got kids in college, a mortgage that they're still paying on a home that's flooded out. and they're having to pay rent in a lot of cases to stay in the school district. a lot of expenses. and they're being denied rental assistance. but you have the authority literally to just change that. and comply with what is on your website. would you please do that? and how quickly can you do that? >> congressman, as we spoke the other day -- >> i've been on you about this. >> no, no, no, and i appreciate it. i wasn't aware of the issue until you raised it. so the bottom line is that it spawned the very deliberate conversations, and we're going to be entering into the rule making process to look at a whole host of why do we put these ramifications on individual assistance to begin with, right.

>> but you could do this. >> some of it, yeah. >> don't have the lawyers arguing with each other. just get it done. that's what this election was about. the american people voted to get it done. >> i will continue to work with you. i appreciate you raising the issue. as you know, i am always in a rock and a hard place when it comes to being deliberate and understanding. that policy that was put into place, i found out the other day it was put in as a result of the 2001 events, the terrorism events in new york. i'm trying to understand why. i'm trying to understand what the ramifications are by moving it, but we're trying to move as quickly as we can, and i'll stay in contact with you. >> you're a bold and decisive person. i can tell you're letting the lawyers discourage you and slow you up. don't do that. it's clear as a bell. just go for it. this hazard mitigation grant program is another one i'm concerned about. as i understand it, the state of texas will receive $1.1 billion in fema hazard mitigation grant program funding this year, but

it's awarded to the states on a formula basis after a presidentially declared disaster impacts an area. administrator long, could you describe, please, how these programs -- what types of projects these funds can be used for and how quickly this money will flow to the state of texas, and what role does fema play in approving the projects recommended by the states and what kind of projects have been proposed so far and what can be done to speed it up? >> you know, i don't know what they proposed so far, but the hmgp post-disaster mitigation program is based on a percentage of public assistance dollars. i think it's -- i'll get you the exact formula. i think it's like 15% of the public assistance dollars that we put forward in a disaster becomes available in post-disaster mitigation. the cost share on that is set by the stafford act of 75/25. so i don't have any authority that i'm aware of to be able to waive that 25%.

as far as the -- we can serve as an adviser, but going back to states' rights, the governor is in control of that response and recovery. so what my job is, is to make sure that, you know, governor abbott -- we're helping to meet his mitigation recovery goals. >> that's what we want to hear so texas can move along more quickly. and mr. chairman, if you'll permit me since we have this one round and so many folks hurting, can i ask quickly about the dollar program? thank you, sir. does that direct assistance for limited home repair program administered by the general land office and unincorporated areas in the city of houston inside the state limits and i've heard from constituents there's been a lot of confusion and delay regarding this dollar program. i understand the glo plans to end the program, the general land office, to end the program for the unincorporated parts of the city of houston and harris county and that the city of houston only recently got under

way with the administration of the program within the city limits. it's been really spotty. are you aware, what's the current status of the program? what can you do to take a blow torch to it? >> here again, what would fix this problem is granting authority on housing. if you can give me the granting authority to provide funding to a governor, down through a governor, to allow that governor to control housing and do housing in the way he or she would like to, it would -- a governor will outmanage us, do it more efficient and effectively. the problem with the inner service government agreement and the reason we went this way is i don't have enough manufactured homes to handle the flooding in houston. the population of harris county alone is more than puerto rico. >> as the judge said, there's 186,000 homes being remodelled. >> right. and so we had to put numerous options on the table. i put travel trailers back on the table. they were taken off the table for some reason because i knew that there was going to be a shortage in housing. we tried to be innovative in this interservice governmental agreement. governor abbott boldly and courageously stepped up to lead the effort. he's one of the only governors

that's ever done this and i commend him for it. the problem is, the mechanism is not right. i'll admit it now. i think it would be better -- because he's got to adhere and purchase housing or provide funding to the homeowner under my code of federal regulations. >> much better going through the state. i thank the chairman for the extra time. it's appropriate as we celebrate thomas jefferson's 275th birthday today that we remember that the founders intended, mr. jefferson in particular, that the states administer things that affected only the states. jefferson liked to say regularly if we would just follow the constitution and apply that standard to any problem, no matter how complicated, the knot will always untie itself. you're on the right track. governor abbott, let texas run texas. we'll take care of it. >> thank you. >> thank you, judge. >> i would like to have another

round. there's three of us left so we're going to have another round. i'm going to start off. once again, a program it looks like you're about to eliminate which i have a lot of interest in, disaster preparedness consortium. my state is a state with a lot of big cities, but it's a great big place. we got more little towns than we got big cities. and the training center at texas a&m university trains our first responders. literally every small town in texas is blessed by that, being able to train. to say that we no longer are going to have that available is to say that two-thirds of my

state is going to have both medical and fire fighting at a minimal level. i don't understand -- i would like it explained why that is necessary. now, if it's because it's administered by a university -- and i can understand prejudice against big universities. they're like big government. they don't look at where the digits are maybe as desperately as they should. but that's a management issue, if that's the case. but to cut off all funding to things like what we're doing in texas is to cut off fire protection and ems protection to two-thirds of our state. not that they won't have it, they just won't have it effective.

now, we got the best training ranges in the entire united states army at ft. hood with the exception of the national training center. okay? that's where you learn the best. you train, and we're great trainers. we've got great soldiers, and they're well trained. but they all go through the national training center before they go to war, if it's available to us. therefore, you save lives, you're more effective, you win battles. that's what this consortium is doing for the small towns and midsize towns of my state and of every state in this union. if it's the fact that universities are attached to it, then let's figure out a way to make it better. explain to me why basically you're saying, i know, i've heard, we got to make cuts and

all that stuff. but i'm telling you, you will harm -- my district is basically suburban. but you're still going to harm about 25 towns in my district. >> yeah, and by no means do we want to harm anybody. i'm just in a rock and a hard place when it comes to where i can prioritize our funding in a tough environment. when it comes to texas a&m and the texas system, look, it's a phenomenal system. we're working with them. if i remember correctly, we actually hired their engineering students to do home inspections. we had to perform over 2.4 million home inspections this year, which is, one, we got to get to better technology and stop doing the manual process to begin with. we are trying to find ways to engage universities. universities do great work. i'm in a rock and a hard place when it comes to what we can fund and what we can't. i would love to be able to fund them all, but it's just not reality.

>> that seems to be your answer. i'm all for going in and doing surgery on the federal government. i think it's a great idea. >> i'd be happy to work with you, sir. >> but i don't understand how to explain to some little small town that has one fire truck and the only people that get to train them is go to a&m. i've graduated kids from high school. i taught sunday school for 25 years. i've got at least five firefighters that i know with that i've talked with. nirvana for a firefighter in a small town is to go to a&m to that training center. they come back with confidence. they know how to fight chemical fires. they know how to fight vehicle fires. they don't just know how to squirt water on a grass fire. they're better in every way for the people that live in their town for going there. all i say is if it's wasteful, let's figure out a way to not be

as wasteful. if you need share from the state, let's do a cooperative with the states or the locals or whatever it needs, add a fee, whatever it needs. to kill it is a pretty disastrous thing. >> sure. >> administrator long, as you can imagine, i get a lot of questions about puerto rico and what's happening in puerto rico. so my last two questions are related to puerto rico. six months after maria devastated puerto rico, the island still has a long way to go, as we've discussed. according to press reports, fema has received claims for assistance to repair over 1 million homes on the island, but fewer than 40% of those have been paid. and one reason for this delay is apparently a difficulty for residents to prove they own their homes. and it has been reported that some transactions are based on

verbal agreements and handshakes and never officially recorded. other survivors may have lost official documents during the storm. fema needs to find a way and a long-term solution or some residents may never be able to return home. so what is the current plan to help these homeowners? do you need additional authority from congress to help solve this problem? and finally, will you commit -- if you need help from us, will you commit to providing us with technical assistance on what authority is needed to fix the problem, including the authority to reimburse individuals who have made repairs at their own ek suspense? >> excellent question. you hit the nail on the head. this is a unique situation about homeownership that the agency has never run into before. i don't know if the legislative fix or a policy fix, but what the concerning factor is, is that to protect the tax paying

dollars, i have to make sure if i'm providing funding to fix a house, that it actually gets done. and it's not that we don't trust anybody to do that. we're a very trusting organization. if i do it and it turns into waste, fraud, and abuse, then i'll be called back before this committee again, saying i leaned too far forward. so let me get back to you on whether or not it's a legislative fix because it may need -- i may need once again to ask you for special authority, similar to looking the other way on the deferred maintenance piece. we don't fix things that were not well maintained typically in disasters. or i'm called before oig again, you know, and you're asking questions of why i'm doing that. so let me get back to you on whether or not it's a special authority or not. >> okay. and then my final question is, i know that you've said that conditions on the island make recovery very difficult, which again we've talked about. a recent ap news story reported

that in the village of curacao, puerto rico, they detailed their struggles with getting running water. speaking about this, one area of the town, a resident said practically no one has shown up here. the story is dated march 16th, 2018. it reports that they still didn't have running water or electricity and had not received the generator they had requested. i had my staff share the article with your staff so that the subcommittee can get more details about what is going on there and to have a better understanding of an area where the recovery seems to be struggling. can you share what you found out? are there any areas where we can be helpful? and is this a good example of other areas in puerto rico that are also struggling to recover? >> so excellent question. there's a lot of misunderstanding on the water. so a majority of the system that

services an overwhelming number of the population in puerto rico is back up and running. a lot of it's running. some of it's running on emergency power. i have not read the article, but what i would probably assume is if it's a private well, what we typically do in that situation, if it's a private well that's not operational or is no longer usable, we have to understand whether or not you can put a generator on that well to pump the water out. if so, what type of generator. and if i remember correctly, we're working on signing the epa to be able to go in and do that. if not, we're still mobilizing water to communities like that through water trucks or buffalos or bottled water. we're working with ngos to make sure they're getting out. we can follow up on any specific area. i'd be happy to do that. you know, make sure we're not leaving any stones unturned. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

administrator long, this assistance thing is really a problem. it really bothers me a lot. we have people that are on the brink of being eight months since the storm made landfall. the stafford act says you can't discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, creed or income. the rule online says you will not discriminate on the basis of income. this is really a desperate problem for people. the law is clear. your rule is clear. there's no reason for there to be any delay with this. you've got the authority. i know your heart's in the right place. i guarantee you it's lawyers arguing with each other that's got you worried. i'm a pretty good lawyer myself. i'm relentless. i don't turn loose once i get ahold of something, do i, judge? >> no. >> i'm not turning loose of this. you've got the authority to do this. i'll tell you, i'm going to use every tool this committee's got to help the lawyers, not you, it's the lawyers underneath you that are the problem. i figured out a way to get the department of justice to change

the sanctuary city policy without ever passing a bill. no language in my cjs bill. just using good common sense, good lawyering, and existing law. i'm telling you, the law supports you on this. i'm counting on you to get this done. i'm not turning loose of it. you can do this immediately. tell those lawyers get out of the way. >> okay. >> i'm coming. >> thank you, sir. >> i really appreciate that. that's very important. these people are really hurting. >> understand. >> that's something you can do right away to help them. deeply appreciate it. >> thank you. >> you can also -- one other thing you've got authority to do is to let people use the mitigation grants when a property is purchased. the law is ambiguous. i believe it gives you a little daylight where you could give the homeowner the flexibility to use that grant to lift a new structure. right now they are limited to

lifting an existing structure which makes no sense. nobody is going to do a better job than the governor. than the property owner. nobody's going to do a better job than the governor. that's the genius of what mr. jefferson and the founders left us. let local and state authorities handle things that affected themselves. so are you familiar with this? can you take -- >> i'm not familiar with the exact issue, but i will go back to my region six staff to make sure i fully understand it. >> thank you. >> absolutely. >> i think this is one you do have the discretion to let the grant -- because today the grant is only being used to lift an old existing structure. >> i'll take a look at that. >> thank you very much. really appreciate it. look forward to working with you and the chairman to help resolve this rental assistance problem and others. anything else you need. thank you. >> thank you. >> we thank you for coming here today. i commend you for trying to fix a broken system.

the issue that it always affects is when you fix a broken system and you don't mine down into it to see what the consequences are going to be. i think we heard a lot about that today. don't give up on trying, but mine down in there and see if there's alternatives. >> yes, sir. >> it's really what we need to look to do. i'm no fan of the federal government running everything, but when you think about it, there's x number of states in the union that historically have disasters. if the burden is put all on those states, those states are going to be overburdened as we try to make sure that the economy of the entire nation functions effectively. for one thing, the gulf coast is where i would argue probably 80% of all the petroleum we produce

in this country is refined. therefore, a major sector of our energy economy could be lost if we didn't do a lot of work down there on the coast. it's not refined in other places, therefore that becomes a federal nexus, in my opinion. i just encourage you to keep trying. but think about asking and learn about the consequences, especially to the little guy. the little guys, they don't have the resources of the big boys. >> sure. >> you got anything further? all right, then we'll recess, and thank you for being here.

c-span 3 is live on capitol hill tomorrow morning with a house foreign affairs committee on the middle east. testifying, the secretary of state for near eastern affairs and the assistant secretary of state for european and eurasian affairs. that's live at 10:00 a.m. eastern tomorrow here on c-span 3. c-span's washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up wednesday morning, bloomberg's greg store will be with us to discuss tuesday's immigration ruling. then oklahoma republican

congressman steve russell will talk about congress' role in the syria conflict. and new jersey democratic congressman bill pasqual on the republican's tax billme. be sure to watch live at 7:00 eastern wednesday morning. join the discussion. this weekend live coverage on book tv of the 22nd annual "l.a. times" festival of books. starting saturday at 1:00 p.m. eastern with journalist jorge ramos. political reporter sarah kenzior with her book. on sunday our live coverage continues at 1:30 p.m. eastern with journalist david corn and his book "russian roulette." co-authored by michael iz akof.

black lives matter co-founder patrice colors. . and political commentator roger simon with his book "i know best." how moral narcissism is destroying our public if it hasn't already. watch our weekend long coverage of the 22nd annual "l.a. times" festival of books live on c-span 2's book tv. sunday, our look back to the tumultuous year of 1968 focuses on women's rights, the women's liberation movement challenged long held assumptions about american womanhood transforming society. joining us to talk about women's rights in 1968 are debra spar, former barnard college president and author of "wonder women, sex, power and the request for perfection" and mona chairen.

she's the author of the upcoming book "sex matters, how modern feminism lost touch with science, love and common sense." watch 1968, american turmoil, women's rights, live sunday 8:30 a.m. eastern. sunday on c-span's q & a, former professional basketball player and author, etan thomas and his book, we matter, athletes and activism. >> when i was younger, i was always taught about the athletes that use their voice and use their positions and their platforms. my mother taught me about kareem abdul-jabbar and muhammad ali and bill russell and jim brown. those are the athletes that i learned about. so as i was getting older it was like a light bulb went off and i made the connection of how i can follow in their footsteps.

i can bring attention to these different causes just because i'm an athlete. and i just continue to do it. i continue to do it through college. i continued to do it in the pros, right here in washington d.c. with the wizards. and it just became a part of me. >> q & a sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span. now a look at u.s. policy in yemen. we'll hear about the status of humanitarian aid efforts and tackling the kol ra outbreak. we'll also get an update on al qaeda in the peninsula. we'll start after the committee finishes up with some other businesses. >> so with love, we thank acting assistant secretary satterfield d