be with us to talk about democrats' role in the midterm elections. that's tuesday morning starting at 7:00 eastern. and be sure to watch "washington journal" on wednesday morning when members of the agriculture committee discuss how president trump's trade and tariff policies are impacting their bottom line. and then on friday, join us for a discussion on the opioid crisis live from baltimore, maryland. c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. and today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington, d.c., and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. the house transportation and infrastructure subcommittee on

emergency management held a hearing last week on hurricane preparedness and response efforts. we hear from fema's associate administrator and an official with the army corps of engineers. this is an hour and 45 minutes. >> the committee will come to order. without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. before we begin, i ask unanimous consent that members not on the subcommittee be permitted to sit with the subcommittee at today's hearing and ask questions. without objection, so ordered. from hurricane, the floods and wildfires, no region of our country was immune from the impact of last year's disasters. last year, we saw ten hurricanes in the atlanta region alone, including hurricanes harvey, irma, and maria, which devastated parts of texas, florida, puerto rico, and the u.s. virgin islands.

we also had one of the worst wildfire seasons on record with over 66,000 wildfires that burned nearly 10 million acres of land. disasters caused an estimated $370 billion in damages in 2017. the purpose of today's hearing is to determine where we are in recovering from these devastating disasters including challenges to recovery and suggestions on how we can overcome those challenges. we also want to understand state, local, and federal efforts to prepare for and respond to the 2018 hurricane season, which began on june 1st. additional additionally, we will discuss reforms that are needed to incentivize and encourage mitigation and the reduction of disaster costs and losses across the country. the 2017 disaster season not only devastated many communities but also highlighted challenges in how he respond to and recover

from disasters. we have a ways to go in rebuilding, especially in puerto rico and the u.s. virgin islands. and it is critical we do what we can to help communities rebuild smarter and better. in november, this committee came together to craft bipartisan legislation, the disaster recovery reform act, which would allow communities to rebuild in a way that would minimize few which are disaster costs and save lives. this legislation includes reforms that will change fema's disaster recovery programs to make them more effective and efficient and encourage and facilitate mitigation projects that reduce disaster risks and increase resiliency against disasters. this legislation has now overwhelm ingingly passed the h twice, including an hr-4, the faa reauthorization act, which

has yet to be taken up by the senate. there are communities impacted by the 2017 disasters and preparing for future disasters that would benefit today from the reforms in drra. some reforms were signed into law as part of the bipartisan budget act of 2018. those reforms allow fema to create incentives for state and local governments to implement mitigation. but we need the other critical reforms including key wildfire mitigation provisions and additional resource to state and local governments for cost-effective mitigation projects. various studies by federal agency, academia, and the private sector have shown that for every $1 of federal investment in mitigation there is $4 to $8 return in avoided disaster damages. mitt grace pigation projects ar

investment in federal dollars. the only way we as a nation will be able to change the direction of rising costs and losses. it makes no sense to continue to rebuild the same way disaster after disaster. i look forward to hearing from your witnesses today on where we are in recovery from 2017 disaster season, where we are in preparing for the 2018 hurricane season, and the recommendations for changes that need to be made to make our communities stronger and better able to recover from disasters of any kind. thank you all for being here. i now recognize the ranking member of the full committee, mr. defazio. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thanks for holding this important hearing on recovery efforts from 2017 and looking forward to the 2018 season. we already have fires burning in the west, and it's going to be another bad fire year and we

don't know what will happen with hurricanes. on friday, we finally got fema's after-action report on 2017. they admitted in that report what everyone knew -- the agency's response was inadequate to put it mildly and in the case of puerto rico and the virgin islands outrageously inadequate. they admit that they did not preposition enough commodities such as food, water, generators before irma and maria struck the virgin islands and puerto rico. they acknowledge they experie e experienced delays in delivering supplies to territories despite the fact that in 2014 they led a national-level exercise indicating that delays could be a problem during a disaster and should be addressed. that's three years before these disasters. president trump, living in a different reality, ignored the obvious failures and the response efforts occurring on

the ground. he called it fake news and then he went to puerto rico and bragged about what a great job they'd done and threw paper towels at people. he put lives at risk, and people died after his visit who should have been receiving assistance. his boorish behavior went beyond to attacking a mayor of san juan who was representing her people who were suffering horribly. and then the fema administrator, to his discredit, brock long, did the same thing, although later he admitted that that was inappropriate. trump never did admit that. fema acknowledged its failures, but it was also, as it was acknowledging its failure, it had other people on staff busy eradicating any trace of any consideration of climate change in its strategic planning. now, that's going to work out

real well, isn't it. so we've got to pay attention to things that are important. then fema found, you know, that it also needs to collaborate more with state, tribal, territorial, local government, but president trump proposed cutting five preparedness grants in his budget by $471 million, or 29%, and proposed reducing funding for education training exercises by $129 million, or 47%. what's going on here? are we going to take this seriously or not? and throughout the after-action report, fema discussed the need to make the nation more resilient to disasters. however, the administration, again, rescinded an existing executive order, because obama did it, establishing a federal flood risk management standard,

i.e., we won't build any federally funded facility in a flood-prone area or if we do build, special construction techniques would be used to protect the structure, the content contents, and the personnel. now that's eliminated. we're not considering those sort of things because we don't believe if climate change or natural disasters or 100-year floods anymore. fema announced the importance of predisaster mitigation while the president said let's cut that 61% to an absolutely pathetic $39 million, chk which could pry be spent in any one targeted city in terms of hurricanes very well and mitigate a lot of loss. so while fema's after-action report identifies significant things needed, the president in his budget says no, none of that. we don't want that.

so we here in congress have responsibility to move forward and as the chairman mentioned we have in a bipartisan way. we're moving forward in ways that deal with disasters and potential disasters more thoughtfully. we took up a bill in the house this week. i was a co-sponsor of it. we said we are not going to rebuild someone's house 20 times or 30 times. it's, you know, a very small percentage after the buildings out there cost 4% of -- cost 25%. is it 4% i think or 2%? never mind. anyway, a very small percentage. it costs about a quarter of fema's budget, and fema of course, our flood insurance program is bankrupt. so we passed a bill to get a study to see if entering into agreements with people in structures that have been repeatedly destroyed to agree to

pay them full market value the next time it's destroyed and reducing their flood insurance risk program will save money. i think it's a no-brainer it will. some people have been rebuilt multiple, multiple times. so we need to do better and act smarter and all these things enumerated and congress is the only hope we have of delivering on that reality. >> thank you. i now recognize the ranking member of the subcommittee, miss titus, for an opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and i apologize for keeping you and the committee and our witnesses waiting. i won't make a habit of that, i assure you. i also thank you for holding this important hearing. as you've heard, the hurricane season began on june the 1st and already we've had two hurricanes form to in the atlantic ocean. hurricane beryl was downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it hit the u.s. virgin islands and puerto rico, where they were

pummeled with strong winds and rain, and even though at that point it was no longer considered a hurricane, tropical storm beryl caused over 40,000 homes and businesses to lose power temporarily in puerto rico, which highlights the fragile state of recovery. also, in the midst of hurricane season, we see that numerous homes in both puerto rico and in the virgin islands still have blue plastic tarps as roofs due to damage that was caused by last year's hurricane. now, the intended life span of these tarps the 30 days, so you can imagine the condition they're in. the territories aren't the only ones in the midst of recovery from the 2017 disasters, and much work remains to be done to solve those problems as well as prepare for 2018. so in addition to the ongoing recovery issues and preparedness, right in the middle of all this, fema has released its 2017 hurricane season after-action report.

in it, they noted several failures as you have heard mentioned in their preparedness efforts for 2017, including inadequate staffing, lack of sufficient commodities in place, and logistical failures. at least they recognize what some of the problems are. excuse me. in this after-action report, fema noted it had exhausted its predisaster contracts for commodities such as food, water, and generators, which should have been in place to give fema a head start on its disaster response efforts. the reform act requires that fema have contracts in place for recurring disaster response requirements before the disaster strikes. yet over the years, fema has failed to procure new contracts or renew existing contracts for such commodities in advance of the disaster, therefore contributing to the state of unreadiness. last fall the puerto rican

electric power authority, prepa, entered into two separate contracts, one with white fish energy holdings, and the other with cobra acquisitions. both contracts contain terms that limited proper federal oversight. although fema denies these claims, both contractors indicated that fema approved the contract terms. i understand the office of inspector general is investigating these contracts to determine the accuracy of the allegations. but i want to be clear, fema should never approve contracts that purport to limit any oversight over disaster funds. now, by oversight, let's be clear what oversight means. it doesn't x memean exercise un influence. last may prepa entered into a new contract with cobra acquisitions to complete restoration of the electrical transmission system. we have heard since then of

potential interjection by fema into that contracting process. while fema needs to be diligent in ensuring the grantees comply with federal laws when they are competing for contracts and that the terms are consistent with fema requirements, that does not mean that fema should improperly interfere in the local contracting process, including the selection of the winning bidders. fema's after-action report also notes shortage of staff that hindered the response to the disasters. fema needs to address this and the other problems listed in the report in a comprehensive manner, and i look forward to hearing about your plans. finally, fema acknowledges the need to invest the mitigation and better prepare for future disaster, yet in its 2018 to 2022 strategic plan, you remove all references to climate change. as long as fema engages in this type of contradictory behavior, the nation and fema will fall behind in its preparedness effort. so as we talk about natural

disasters, i think we have to be realistic. finally, i would just mention that pits are something that are missing from our report and from our plans, and i would like to see some discussion of the emergency, transparency, and accountability act that we have introduced, because if you take care of pets, that often makes it easier to take care of people engaged. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, miss titus. today we are joined by mr. jeffrey barrett, office of response and recovery, federal emergency management agency. mr. ray alexander, director of contingency operations and the chief of office of homeland security, u.s. army other of engineers, mr. patrick sheehan, director of tennessee emergency management agency, testifying on behalf of the national emergency management association, which represents state emergency managers, miss misty gardener,

emergency management coordinator, city of richardson, texas, testifying on behalf of local emergency managers and the u.s. council of the international association of emergency managers, and the honorable dave pawlson, who served as fema administrator from 2005 to 2009, testifying on behalf of the build strong coalition. i ask unanimous consent our witnesses' statements be included in the record. without objection, so ordered. the subcommittee would ask you limit your testimony to five minutes. you may proceed. >> good morning. my name is jeff bayer. i'm the social security administrator for the office of response and recovery for fema. on behalf of secretary nelson and administrator long, thank you for the opportunity to discuss lessons learned from the

2017 hurricane season and our ongoing progress made under one fema strategic plan and, two, our preparations for the current 2018 hurricane season. as mentioned, hurricanes harvey, irma, and maria, stated a nation at a time when fema was supporting disease -- dozens of disasters across our country. fema responded to wildfires in california. an estimated 47 million americans were affected by last year's hurricanes and wildfire, approximately 15% of the entire u.s. population. following the 2017 hurricanes, we have reviewed preparations for the immediate response and initial recovery operations with the goal of identifying lessons learned, which collectively benefit future emergency management operations at all levels, both local, state, federal, nonprofit, and the private sector. last week, we released our 2017 hurricane season after-action

report. it examines the agency's performance during the record-breaking season and captures transformative insights that will help fema, the emergency management community, and the nation chart a path into the future. the report identified key findings across five focus areas and offered targeted recommendations for us to improve as well as broader lessons for partners throughout the emergency management community. we took a hard look at ourselves, pointed our finger at ourselves, and we released that report. we hear terms like failure and admission, we look at that as leadership. that not only helps our agency but helps director sheehan and gardener and many others. the minute we stop looking at ourselves and taking that hard look because of what we may fear others meisei, ay say, we've lo ball and leadership. fema's strategic plan builds on

existing best prak tctices and identifies new initiatives for new goals. three main goals are to build culture preparedness, ready the nation for catastrophic disaster, and reduce the complexity of fema. they or not applied to a specific hazard or a specific cause. they're how we react and how we stabilize our country in the event that something bad may happen. as part of the initiative to ready the nation for catastrophic disasters, we emphasize stabilization of critical lifelines and coordination across critical infrastructure sectors. this is a new terminology in emergency management as we've always focused on state and locals and we will continue to. we have to broaden our horizons and bring more people under our tent. lifelines provide indispensable services that enable the continuous operation of critical business and government functions, and if not properly restored, they will risk health and safety and they also can risk national economic security. solutions to stabilize lifelines

as we found out in 2017 do not fit in a single construct like your existing emergency support functions so we must provide cross sector coordination to stabilize lifelines. for example, the critical lifeline of food, water, and sheltering cross miss agencies, community partners, and emergency support functions. but we must address holistically in order to support the community, focusing on lifelines and raeemitted impact. as we look at 2017, we're taking immediate steps in 2018. for example, we've updated our plans and procedures. we've made logistical improvements, significantly in the commonwealth and our states and territories. we've increased from thousands of bottles of water to millions. we had one warehouse in the commonwealth, now we have five. we've redefined our

communications. we've had coordinated exercises in training with multiple partners to include the commonwealth and the territory. we're modernizing housing inspection. i would like to take a moment to highlight one of our initiatives. what we clearly learned is we have to increase our stocks outwardly. that gives us better time to coordinate with the private sector when we have limited shipping, limited air, and limited receiving capabilities. what we know how is we can coordinate bet we are the private sector when we have that. so establishing larger footprints in the caribbean will allow us days and not hours to establish that and better serve our citizens. i am pleased to be here today to represent the dedicated men and women of fema. i'm pleased to be with the partners on this panel. and i am happy to take any questions the committee may have. thank you. >> thank you for your testimony. mr. alexander, please proceed. >> chairman barletta, ranking member titus, distinguished members of the subcommittee,

good morning. i'm honored to testify before you today and discuss the authorities and responsibilities of the u.s. army corps of engineers during disaster response and recovery operations. lessons learned from the 2017 storm season and actions taken to ensure readiness for 2018. the corps conducts its emergency response and recovery activities under two basic authorities. the stafford act and plk lublic 8499. under the stafford act, we work under the direction of fema. for recovery missions, the corps serves as the lead coordinating agency for the infrastructure systems recovery support function under the national disaster recovery framework. public law 8499 provides a separate source of authority for the corps to prepare for and respond to floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters. under these authorities, the corps maintains more than 50

specially trained response teams supported by emergency and preawarded contracts to perform a wide range of public works and engineering-related missions. the 2017 hurricane season was historic, and we continue to identify lessons learned in an effort to sustain and improve our performance. the extraordinary impacts of hurricanes harvey, irma, and maria resulted in this unprecedented response. for harvey, fema issued the corps 23 mission assignments totaling over $140 million. at its peak, nearly 1,000 corps employees deployed and 40 employees remain engaged today supporting 11 active recovery mission assignments. in response to hurricanes irma and maria, fema issued over 3.3 billion for puerto rico and the u.s. virgin islands. we deployed thousands of personnel and today 369 corps employees remain engaged, executing recovery operations.

additionally, we received 43 mission assignments in florida and georgia, totaling approximately $45 million. details in my written testimony, mission assignments encome passpa -- encompassed removal of debris, generator, and the construction of temporary blue roofs, enabling residents to move out of emergency shelters and back home. with maria, we were tasked to assist and repair the puerto rican power grid. the collaboration of responders including the corps and federal agency partners, the utility industry, and the puerto rico electric power authority, have now restored over 99.9% of the nearly 1.5 million customer who is had power before the storms. including these three major hurricanes, the corps responded in total to 32 events in 2017. among these disasters was the october 2017 wildfires across northern california.

fema issued seven mission assignments totaling $1.2 billion for debris management and technical assistance. additional wildfires in late december of '17 in ventura and santa barbara counties precipitated into deadly mudslides in santa barbara county after significant rain fall in january of this year. in response, fema issued two additional mission assignments totaling $110 million for the removal of mudslide debris from 1 1 ba1 basins and natural chan. the bipartisan budget act appropriated over $17 billion for the rehabilitation projects across the nation to construct flood and storm damage reduction projects and to complete flood and coastal storm damage reduction studies. we recently identify specific projects that will receive these funds and working as quickly as

possible to complete this work. combining the lessons learned and the best practices from 2017, we've taken immediate actions to prepare for 2018. we've completed several hurricane exercises along with federal, state, local, territory prt partner partners, the gulf and east coast, the virgin islands. we participated in the national level exercise and we, too, have updated our hurricane plans. based on lessons learned, we've worked with fema to update and refine 34 prescripted mission assignments which include new cells for logistics support, control, and planning. we are creating a center of excellence. in addition to our involvement in these and future response and recovery missions, the corps

remains fully committed and capable of executing our other civil works activities across the nation. this concludes my testimony. i look forward to answering any questions you may have. thank you. >> thank you for your testimony, mr. alexander. mr. sheehan, you may proceed. >> thank you, chairman, ranking member titus, members of the subcommittee. in my statement, i explain in detail the hard work of my agency and our partners in tennessee during the 2016 response to wildfires and the drought that extended across the state and ultimately destroyed thousands of acres, more than 2,600 buildings, injured more than 134, and resulted in 14 deaths. but these fires were merely a precursor to a year in which the nations saw tremendous damage in losses from drought, wildfires, and of course the incredible destruction caused by hurricanes harvey, irma, and maria. the costliest disaster year in our history.

emergency managers constantly review our actions and work toward making continuous improvements, building learning organizations and diffusing knowledge important to our profession for the emergency management enterprise and the preparations being made for 2018, we must remember that all the various policies, processes, and programs of emergency management are interwoven with each other and extend far beyond what we see happening at fema or in the headlines every day. much of what happens to prepare the nation happens in the states, counties, and cities of our nation. for example, beyond any of the federally declared disasters in 2017, state emergency managers handled an additional 22,552 events. local governments managed another 12,557 events. fooep

fema is not a first responder during disaster or wiese otherw many of these events likely would not have received the type of response that they needed. a culture of preparedness and timely response capabilities are vitally important to states and local communities. we create this thriving emergency management system by foster agriculture of preparedness to address threats and risks, building capacity and capabilities and creating a basis by which states are empowered to assist one another. beyond specific preparedness programs that may strengthen people or policies, mitigation strengthens our infrastructure. this subcommittee has taken bold steps to foster inging ing agr preparedness. the hazard mitigation program included in the disaster recovery format will fundamentally change how he prioritize and manage mitigation in this nation.

the built to use 16% of disaster costs will fundamentally shift the preparedness paradigm and drive down future disaster costs. studies continue to show the value investment in mitigation and the aleleviation of potentil suffering is apparent. fema is also pleased to support the darr provision for management costs. the increase from 3% to 12% will allow states and local governments to assume more responsibility in this emerging environment of collaborative disaster management. any increase, however, must be tied to the flexibility to roll over these costs from one disaster to the next. nema and iam has submitted a proposal to fema and was submitted for the record with my testimony. one of the other ways in which emergency managers build capacity is through programs such as empg, which is truly a

federal, state, and local partnership. for every federal dollar invested in it, at least that much is matched by state and local governments. nema and iam come together every year to voluntarily submit a report to congress on the return on investment. it demonstrates the hard work that goes into supporting these 35,109 events i mentioned earlier. despite the continued growth of disaster activity across the nation, funding has remained stagnant since 2012. that's why the two agencies call on congress to approve 5% inflationary increase for the program in the omnibus. we were not successful in 2018, but we repeat that request for 2019 and trust congress will find a way. the effects of programs like this to increase management costs can be multiplied several times over when states are empowered to assist one another. the best way we do this is through emac.

from august 2017 to july of this year, 19,196 personnel deployed. capacity built throughout the system is capacity able to be shared across the country and the national guard is a vital part of that capability. the emergency managers and our partners continue to work on improving the speed and availability of the system. as we examine the 2017 disaster year and look ahead to the rest of 2018, remember that even when fema is not actively responding to a disaster, state and local emergency managers are still recovering from the last event and conducting the planning, building the capacity, and setting the stage for the next storm to approach, all while working diligently to manage complicated federal programs. chairman and ranking member titus, and distinguished members, thank you for your continued support. your leadership and persistence and support are appreciated. i'm happy to take any of your questions. >> thank you for your testimony. miss gardener, you may proceed.

>> good morning, chairman barletta, ranking member titus, and members of the subcommittee. thank you for this opportunity to testify on lessons learned from the historic 2017 hurricane season. my name is misty gardener. i'm the emergency management coordinator for the city of richardson, texas. i've worked in public safety for 23 years and 10 of which i've been a certified emergency manager. i appear before you today as a representative of the u.s. council of international association of emergency managers and advocacy organizations for the procession dedicated to protecting america's local communities from all hazards and threats. local governments serve as our nation's first line of defense. when disasters strike and immediately following a disaster, emergency managers play a role in coordinating local response and recovery efforts working to mitigate further damage from the disaster. but the most consequential work local emergency managers do happens before the disaster. the emergency managers wake up thinking about, planning for,

and mitigating for all types of emergencies because we don't have the benefit of knowing what may occur next. a public health emergency, hurricane, tornado, active shooter. the list goes hurricane, active shooter the list goes on. most of those things happen with little to no warning. and every day emergency managers are hard at work at a all levels of government, coordinating with all sectors of the nation. helping our communities become better prepared. mr. chairman, with the 2018 hurricane season already upon us and numerous disasters have already struck our nation this year, i want to take a moment to look back at lessons learned from last year's unprecedented disaster impacts. by sharing these observations i hope to contribute to the discussions congress and fema are having about reforming our nation's disaster recovery systems. ultimately, it is the hope of ime that congress will pass the disaster recovery reform act to supporting predisaster

mitigation and helping to develop a culture of prepared finance which we're more resilient. from august through october of 2017, i worked on three deployments in response to hurricane harvey. first, i served as the emergency operations center manager for the city in dallas, to shelter more than 5,000 texas citizens from there i was called to work in the state operation center to help coordinate public works nationwide. finally, i was called to the recovery assistance team. mr. chairman, as a matter of practice emergency managers continually evaluate what works well and actively seeking opportunities. our success hinges on having the courage to make the changes. associated with these lessons learned. in my written testimony submitted to the subcommittee i outlined some of the lessons learned during hurricane harvey experiences. i would like to highlight a few

of the key points for your consideration. first, information sharing challenges were an issue yet again. simply emergency managers cannot adequately communicate with the public and coordinate an effective recovery if we don't have access to key information. that the nonprofit and the federal partners that we invite in to assist have. the right to know must specifically include emergency managers through federal policy. second, the lack of available resources sufficiently trained in recovery and mitigation processes challenge and impacted the communities. third, we failed to meet the need. revising the stafford act to allow utilization of spaces not allowed congregant shelters would have a tremendous impact. but allowing the funds to build shelters closer to their communities, even though the cost benefit analysis may not meet the current threshold that builds resiliency.

the cost benefit analysis alone does not adequately represent the environmental and social impacts play. as the funding with the most potential to make exponential strides toward resiliency we must determine the project eligibility. lastly i usual congress to show its commitment to disaster readiness and resiliency by authorizing more predisaster mitigation funding to compare, in 2017, predisaster mitigation was $90 million. but for harvey alone the state of texas has been allocated $1 billion. doesn't it make more sense to work to avoid such massive post disaster expenses? on behalf of ime and all local government the emergency management professionals across the country, i sincerely appreciate this opportunity to

share my hurricane harvey. use the opportunities in 2017. those lessons learned help us a build a generation of americans who resolve to make action -- take action before disaster. empowering themselves to be more resilient to disasters in the future. thank you, chairman barletta. i look forward to any questions the members of the subcommittee have for me. >> thank you. administrator paulison, you may proceed. >> members of this subcommittee, i want to thank you for holding the important hearing today. as communities continue to recover from the devastating catastrophes i remain grateful for the leadership and for the opportunity to show my expertise on the committee. it's a group of firefighters, emergency responders and inshunners, contractors and

consumer organizations, code specialists and many others committing to building a more resill yement america. during my 40 years of dealing with natural disasters i have gained a deep appreciation for the tremendous service our nation's first responders. in my career which began in 1971 as a rescue firefighter, i served as the administrator of fema from 2005 to 2009, administrator to the u.s. fire administration from 2001 to 2005 director of preparedness of prepareness and fire chief of fire rescue accident in miami-dade. it looks like i can't hold a job. responded to many major hurricanes including andrew in 1992 and katrina in 2005 has provided me with a unique understanding of how we can better position fema to respond when disaster strikes. as we all know, last year was a particularly devastating one for disasters. with 17 storms during the

atlantic hurricane responsible for over $200 billion in damages and a death toll in the thousands according to most estimates. these are astounding and horrifying numbers and a focus should remain on helping those who lost so much. having sat in that chair, i know the challenges faced. but while we are helping those in need it's beyond time to give serious consideration to why we continue to leave lives, homes, communities vulnerable. the evidence is simply overwhelming. better land use and increased mitigation the can dramatically reduce devastation. we must reward communities who invest in resiliency and stronger building codes. as lives are on the line, we must provide assistance, get the nonflammable and seismic standards right the first time. and make sure they're in force. the cost share provision in the reform act signed by president

trump earlier this year as part of the disaster recovery format passed by this very committee represents a major step for creating these incentives and a work of this subcommittee as well as the work of other leaders set to chairman issue her serve -- deserve a tremendous amount of credit. with another busy hurricane season ahead, it's more urgent than ever. one provision would dramatically boost the size of the nation of the predisaster mitigation account, with new tools to mitigate against the risk of flooding and wildfires. also before us fema is implementing the cost share provision if passed into law. i applaud fema for embracing this challenging task and i would like to offer four specific recommendations that i

believe will help insure that it's implemented under way that will help protect lives and homes. first, a cost sharing center should ensure maximum flexibility. second, a minimum standard should be established such that in order to be eligible for any enhanced federal cost share a state must have a statewide building code with an enforcement mechanism. third, the state must have a working mitigation plan that identifies top vulnerabilities and a step that the state must take to reduce the vulnerabilities. in order to get any funding, states must implement action identified in the plan. finally, it would be critical to push for incentives offered to the building codes that can achieve significant impact. this would mean the adoption of the most recent recommended code and maintain a model code no older than six years and implementing changes to state and local building codes that address key vulnerabilities. as the 2018 atlantic hurricane

season gets under way the time is now to put predisaster mitigation at the forefront and protect our nation and communities from the next storm. there's a critical piece of unfinished business passed by this committee and the house of representatives this year. a key provision puts a 6% of all annual disaster spending on the budget for predisaster mitigation. this provision is critical and must be passed by this congress. without preventive mitigation spending, people are left vulnerable to losing their live and simply it doesn't have to be this way. thank you again for holding this important hearing and i look forward to hearing your questions. >> thank you for your testimony, administrator paulison. i will begin the first round of questions, limited to five minutes for each member. if there are additional questions following the first round we'll have additional rounds of questions as needed and first i was glad to hear ranking member titus mention the

importance of the needs of pets during a disaster. a topic of great performance to me. we included a very important provision in the drra that authorizes fema to set up a veterinarian pilot program that will help communities get the help they need in setting up shelters that include facilities for pets. so thank you for bringing that up and i will begin twice this congress e, the house has overwhelmingly passed the disaster recovery reform act which includes key provisions that will help speed disaster recovery and mitigate disaster risks. the legislation changes and changes in authorities in drra will save lives. property and taxpayer dollars in the senate have yet to act on this important legislation. to all witnesses here, how important do you think it is

that congress enact the provisions contained in the disaster recovery restorm act? mr. byard, you may start. >> yes, sir, we appreciate the committee's commitment to improving our nation's resilience and response to the disasters. you know, the drra when incentivized, that predisaster mitigation very, you know, similar to what the administrator paulison just laid out. building a nation of resilience, building a culture of resilience is one of the administrator's top strategic goals. thank you. >> the corps of engineers certainly supports any effort to increase the nation's infrastructure and to promote safety measures. we support, you know, investments in mitigation up front. we are working on the mitigation function leadership group with the federal agency departments

on the investment strategy. if you take a look at if star amounts associated with the supplements of storms since hurricane katrina, if you took a fraction of that amount and vels investigated it in mitigation, perhaps we can see that today. thank you. >> the national emergency management association remains active and the key ones are the predisaster hazard mitigation that provision to take 6% of disaster funding and make it available for predisaster mitigation is i think a game changer in terms of our nation's resilience. support also for the management costs. the ability to change that current level of funding from 3.34% to 12% split 7% to the state and 5% to local governments if that happens if we're able to implement that,

the fema for the interprize and the nation collaborating a management process that allows us to fund that capability and build a more collaborative emergency management system. the association opposes the duplication of benefits provisioned there. we think that the ability to waive some of these things could lead to other agencies trying to reach into the disaster relief fund and that that could create potential problems in funding streams for funding the nation's disaster readiness. >> building on mr. sheehan's discussion there, the international association of emergency managers also supports and we urge everyone to remember that this policy it is policy and it's written but it saves lives and if it's not saving a life, it's impacting quality of

life. and for those that are less willing to look at passing such legislation remember it may be your family that's dealing with this legislation and policy in the future. and make sure that you can live with whatever that comes up to be. incentives for states and locals are imperative. it helps us to continue to drive mitigation as a culture in our own communities so we can teach that culture to the citizens that live in our communities. but consider additionally adding the benefit and incentives to the local citizen. the private sector partners we have, the nonprofits and the other nongovernmental agencies within those jurisdictions. how can those incentives also be directly applied so that the culture can be continued to be built. >> as you're sitting here listening and you see that

almost every agency that responds to disasters recognizes very clearly, very clearly, that predisaster mitigation works. we saw very -- after hurricane andrew we made significant changes in our building code. you saw hurricane irma go through the keys, the houses that were built to the new code are still there. they're doing fine. some of them didn't even lose the roof tiles. it went across the top of my house in south florida and no damage at all. if you look at last year's disaster spending over $200 billion spent on disasters. just taking 6% of that and applying the predisaster mitigation can you impact this would have across this country as far as our building resiliency and system. i know you're over your five minutes, so -- but mr. barletta, the question that you asked,

will it have an impact, of course it would in a very, very positive impact. i think it's extremely important that we push this very hard to get it not only through here, but also through the senate. thank you for the question. >> the chair now recognizes ms. titus for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. a big part of recovery after a disaster is contracting with the private sector to get assistance with some of the efforts. so i would like to ask you, mr. byard, about some disaster contracting with fema. and in october of 2016, the puerto rico electric power authority awarded a small company with just two full-time employees located in montana the white fish energy holdings company a $300 million contract to restore electricity on the island in the aftermath of hurricane maria. according to "the washington

post," before the white house -- white fish, you can see where i might get the two confused, white fish received the contract on the thing they had done was a small effort in arizona to repair a 4.8 mile transmission line for a $1.3 million deal. now, they have eventually -- they eventually canceled their contract with white fish and white fish claims that puerto rico owes them an additional $100 million. what role did fema play in the awarding of the contract? did they request guidance from you before making the award? are you planning to reimburse them for the expenses related to the contract? i wonder if you're cooperating with the probe. i understand the department of homeland security office of the inspector general is conducting

and can you provide the project worksheets for what was actually done to merit this kind of payment of taxpayer dollars? >> yes, ma'am. so one, we have to look at the context of where we were. so we have a devastating disaster and i believe it was in october of 2017 when prepa, the legal responsible entity to restore power for the commonwealth. just as most of our co-ops, cooperatives, around our nation, this is our private electric providers are around the nation. prepa was the entity that provides power to the citizens of the commonwealth. as we had many stores prior to that and many different disasters prior to that, standard practice within the

industry is mutual aid crews will come in to assist. that did not occur at that time, so prepa elected to do a contract. fema does not get involved in the contracts between legal applicants necessarily and who they contract with. we have federal procurement rules and regulations that are required to be followed in order to get reimbursement for contracts at large. the public assistance program does give the ability to -- for fema to reimburse eligible applicants for work. any reimbursement done under the white fish contract has gone through the eligibility requirements set forth in the stafford act for reimbursement. so you know, and you had a list of questions, perhaps, i'm going to give an overview of how that works. so at the time, you know, we had to make some very quick and crisis action planning decisions on the ground, some of which we have not been faced with in an a

disaster. the actual generation and distribution power of the commonwealth was devastated. and most -- in most terms and in most cases we turn to the corps of engineers which is a vital power for emergency restoration and that's done through generators. at this time we knew we had to have more than that. so we asked the corp to -- >> i'm not interested in the corp. i want to get back to the white fish arrangement. >> sure, ma'am, that's a prepa question. we would reimbursement eligible applicants for eligible work done. >> and you don't think fema should have in place some greater checks on the contracts that are issued before you just pay out this kind of money to the company -- i'm not an expert in this area would have some reservations about contracting with for such a major job and over time it's shown that they weren't up to the job. >> right. >> you didn't think that's your

responsibility? >> no, ma'am, i don't. i think the responsibility is if it's locally executed and stage managed and as you heard the esteemed colleagues on the panel all disasters begin and end locally. what are we asking fema to do? do we support the locals in one hand and then, you know, manage, oversee and dictate how they contract in the other? >> i'm not asking you to dictate. i'm asking you to provide some oversight for the enormous amount of money, $30 million of taxpayers. >> i believe the total bill was over $300 million so i feel very certain we have strict oversight on what the taxpayers' dollars are going to. there are oversight measures in place with white fish and any other contract. >> is that part of your after-disaster report to have greater oversight on these kind of contracts and you don't think it should be? >> no, ma'am, i never said i didn't think it should be. i said we have current oversight and current policies and procedures in place to ensure that federal dollars are spent

wisely and that they're spent for the allocation set forth in the stafford act as -- we have contract teams that will go out and assist local governments. they have done that in texas and florida and others so i believe we have adequate oversight in place. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> the chair recognizes mr. crawford for five minutes. >> are you aware of what percentage of homes flooded by hurricane harvey had flood insurance policies? >> sir, i don't know the percentage. i can definitely get that back to the committee. i would hate to guess or estimate. >> all right. well, i'm looking at the "washington post" report on the analysis that shows only 8% have flood insurance. does that sound accurate to you? >> you know, sir, i don't want to, you know, judge the accuracy of "the post." but what i will say is insurance

is first and best line of defense. 17% -- i would say that would be low in that area. >> okay. let me ask you this. are you aware that fema's legally required to assess the accuracy and need to update the flood map in the area every five years? >> what i can do is get you information on the national flood insurance program. it's not under my purview. >> it's not? >> no, i'm under response recovery. i handle stafford act programs but i can get you information on the flood insurance program. i don't want to overspeak. i would hate to do that to you. >> well, that said probably the line of questioning that i have is probably better directed for somebody else in your agency. so you don't have any issues with flood control or flood mapping per se? >> no, sir. it's not under -- again, it's not under my responsibility. as laid out by the administrator.

but again we'll be happy to work with you. i don't want to come across as i'm dodging the question. >> sure, i understand. do you have any knowledge of that five year requirement though? is that in fact accurate that you have to update every five years? >> you know, i hate to look to my left, but our state and locals may have a better understanding of the mapping requirements and again i don't want to put them on the spot. but -- >> let me ask ms. gardner because i think you're in the area affected, correct? you were not? >> i actually am in north texas. i responded to the area. >> okay. you were down there, okay. >> yes. >> so i guess i'm asking you to speculate here, but i have some concerns about the accuracy of fema flood mapping. and the -- how current they are. i'm just wondering if you could opine on whether or not you think fema is the best agency to

in fact engage in flood mapping? >> i will give you my opinion based on my experience but yes that would be a lot of speculation. i have not personally looked at the flood maps for that impacted area so that's another piece that i'm not aware of. i will tell you that fema has played an active role and they engage actively other partners as -- such as the national weather service and other partners that deal with flooding on a regular basis. and because they're used to doing that, i don't see a reason to change that process because we have seen it and it's worked in our communities. we do not flood in the city of richardson because of mitigation efforts we have taken in the past. not to say we never will, but we do not see the same flooding issues and we have used those map. >> let many ask mr. paulison, because you have been a former

fema administrator, correct? >> yes, sir. >> would you be able to speak whether or not statutorily every five years that's required by fema to update the maps? >> i can't speak about the five years but when i was the administrator we had started to doing the flood mapping and i know north carolina was one of the first starts we started. i'm not sure they have gotten so far. but i know that fema had started that process of trying to do the entire country to get more accurate flood maps. >> well, i appreciate you all being here today. i think i have to submit my questions for the record for someone else in your agency to answer. but i appreciate your cooperation. thank you. >> yes, sir. >> thank you, mr. crawford. the chair recognizes mr. defazio for five minutes. >> thanks, mr. chairman. just back to the line of questioning by the subcommittee ranking member i had asked similar questions at an earlier

hearing and what we have is a contradiction here. the two contractors claim that fema reviewed the contracts and actually signed off on excluding oversight. and that's been denied by fema and again today and so actually the inspector general is going to try to get to the bottom of this how these rather fishy contracts were entered into. so let's go to some issues we can resolve. mr. byard, ranking member titus and i just recently sent the administrator a letter expressing concern about your personnel, your reservists for emergencies. your own standards say that you should have 10,928 reservists. you had 6,749 on call last year and you still have 2,383 deployed. so that seems to leave with us

something around 4,300 reservists. how are you going to deal with this issue this year? >> you know that's a very good question and as we outlined in our after action we faced, you know, personnel shortages in 2017. you know, if you go back the agency pays -- faced personnel shortages in 2016, '15, '14, you can go back. we'll face personnel shortages in 2019. how do we do that? how do we accomplish our mission without saying we need more fema employees? several things we're doing in the recommendation that affect us. first of all, changing our national level doctrine and revising the national response framework. what that will do for us as a country it puts more players at the table so that the resources and the personnel we have we can better utilize those by including the private sector in what we do daily, in our private -- excuse me, in our deliberate planning and

operational planning by incorporating a -- our critical infrastructure, our 16 critical infrastructure and then cross sector planning with those. if a problem hits we don't hit one bucket. we task and organize around the problem. now, we are making hiring in critical areas. we are hiring in logistics. also as the report indicates we'll have teams that can get on the ground anywhere, not just in the commonwealth. and help in the mileage logistics. in texas a very robust capabilities on that end from the state and local side of the things. so we didn't have that same issue. the other thing we've got to do as you look to the left or the right our best emergency managers are not -- they don't wear a fema shirt. they're our state and local partners. we have the system as you probably are aware of the emergency management assistance compact and from the state i'm

from the state emergency management, i have done that. i have assisted states and i brought in states but when we talk about a national catastrophe and similar to what we saw in 2017, we need the ability to also rally those resources, those well trained professionals and put those resources to use. so that will increase our staffing also and we're doing that through the national qualification system and we feel we'll have great buy-in from our state and local partners. i personally did that in 2012 when hurricane sandy hit. i led a team of eight from the state of alabama under fema's direction to help out the efforts in new york city. not only does that benefit us at the federal level, you bring the lessons learned back to your state so you better the nation. so we have to look at you know in a perfect world i'd love to have 20,000 reservists ready to go right now and every other federal agency is probably sitting in front of you would love to have "x" amount of people. but the reality of it is we have

to look outside our traditional means. we talk about state and local governments and mitigation but that's not working. how do we do things better? >> wasn't there concern particularly in the case of puerto rico about reimbursement to the locals if they provided mutual aid? >> there may have been. but how does fema get involved in that? let me tell you. we expedited what we call category "b" under the public assistance that would reimbursement the commonwealth to do that type of payment. we expedited that. that was our priority at the time. obligation to the commonwealth. so there were concerns but again that's a question better asked to the commonwealth or to others. to combat that though, what we have done in 2018 we have hired over 1,500 local hires on the island. we have -- they're fema employees. they're going through the national qualification system now. we have robust exercises.

we have people embedded with every municipality. we have done a tremendous amount of effort from 2017 response wise into 2018 and we put that to the test as i believe somebody mentioned with tropical storm beryl. we can turn that machine to the responsible organization in about 14 hours. we have increased the number of commodities five fold in water and mres. generators are connected to critical infrastructure. we know we'll lose power in the storm but we'll be able to power emergency power to those critical facilities. >> well, thank you, my time has expired. i was going to ask the corp regarding the removal of the very large generators that they delivered if i could, mr. chairman. i don't know if they have actually been removed or just planning to remove them and i guess i would question why you would do that now with the beginning of the hurricane season since their grid seems somewhat fragile.

>> sir, there were three -- what we call mega generators rented and brought to the territory to help stabilize the grid. they remain in operation today. there are no plans for immediate demobilization. >> good. that may have been bad information i received. >> but there's one, sir, in the community that will be demobilized effective midnight tomorrow. and that is a decision that was reached based upon assessment by prepa of the status of the grid in that area. and it was concurred. that decision demobilized was concurred by the unified coordination group which has a representative from the governor's office there who concurred with that. >> okay. well, hopefully prepa is better managed now than before. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, the chair recognizes mr. mast for five minutes. >> thank you, chairman and thank you, mr. alexander for

representing the corps of engineers. my community dreads hurricane season because year after year as a result of the risk management that surrounds hurricane preparedness through the corp of engineers the water is discharged, hundreds of billions of water, the bacteria, blue green aljay, the water being released from lake okeechobee into my community has 15 times greater the algae that leads to health hazards. this is all in the aim of risk management for the dike surrounding the lake. so i wanted to ask you about the risk management of the water levels of lake okeechobee, and the potentially failing dike around the lake. what is the level of water in

inches, feet, that lake okeechobee should be at so there's not a risk of dike failure. >> thank you for the question. going into the beginning of the wet season, we strive to maintain a lake level of approximately 12 1/2 feet. >> 12 1/2 feet is the maximum level? >> yeah. >> then up to 15 1/2 feet at the beginning of the dry season. >> is that for the purpose of risk management or for other purposes? >> that's a combination of trying to meet other purposes and balance the needs associated with environmental, you know, water -- >> then you gave me an answer to a question i didn't ask. i asked you what is the level on the lake for that lake, that dike, to be safe from dike failure? not for other concerns, not for drinking water.

not for agricultural irrigation. not for agreements with the tribes around the lake. what level do you need the lake at so there's no risk of dike failure with the herbert hoover dike? >> as i said, we attempt to reach a level no less than 12 1/2 feet. >> now getting into those other concerns i know i sent you the questions in advance so i'd have the answers given to me. how much water do you keep on the lake for other concerns? how much water is kept on lake okeechobee is kept there for the tribes? >> the lake is not managed like a flood controlled reservoir. the herbert hoover dike contains a prior free flowing lake. the inches of water is not

manageable. >> the lake and the corps of engineers keeps track of all the water. earlier in the season the municipalities were requesting 1,000 cubic feet hoping to get the water off the lake because they needed that for the ecology of their waterway. they were denied. the corp of engineers has a call every single week where they pay attention to the amount of inches or quarter inches of level of change on lake okeechobee so it's managed in that way. how much water is kept on the lake in the form of what's requested by consumptive use permits for agriculture? how many inches, how many feet of water are kept on the lake for that purpose? >> well, i would like to state that the corp of engineers does keep track of every inch of water in that reservoir. that being said though, we don't have specific allocations for those specific purposes and the consumptive use agreements. it's a balance between the

12 1/2 and 15 1/2 feet and it's managed as a system along with some other i guess laws that exist down there with respect to the consumptive use. the water input rules. so we have to balance the multiple purposes and potential uses -- >> so in balancing those purposes, sir, i had a conversation just a couple weeks back with the south florida water management district. i asked about the ecology of the lake. they said the optimum level for the ecology is at minimum 11 feet. i asked them if it should not be below 11 feet if irrigation or those that need water, agricultural or those who need drinking water, if the lake was at 11 feet would you still send the water to the irrigation canals for agriculture the answer is yes. if it's at ten feet would you

send it there for agricultural irrigation the answer is yes. if it's at nine feet, the answer is yes. if the lake sat eight feet a dangerously low level the answer was yes. they would still get their water for those purposes. so is it right that you keep the water at this higher level when my community is destroyed because this water is at that higher level when you're still going to send the water to these other areas for their purposes, even if the water is down as low as eight feet on lake oco che bee. >> sir, i haven't been privy to the conversations that you have had. i know that our jacksonville district is engaged with the communities, very engaged with you. i'm not an expert on the lake and the releases but what i'll offer is an engageal. you and the district commander and anybody from his staff who can walk you through in detail how we manage the lake and what the risks are at the various levels. >> thank you for the answers to your question, mr. chairman. i yield back and i do request a

second round of questioning. >> thank you. chair recognizes ms. plaskett for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank the ranking member for having this hearing. this is of course very important to me. representing the virgin islands. after we have gone through the 2017 hurricane season, we're beginning the 2018 hurricane season and are still looking to ways in which not just to recover, but to begin the rebuilding. as some of you are probably unaware, for this entire school year children in the virgin islands have operated on a four-hour shift system because so many of our public schools were compromised so that children had to share facilities and only participated in school curricular activities for four hours during the day. most of our dialysis and inpatient individuals are still off island because our hospitals

had been compromised so much from the hurricane that they have been unable to be at home for those services. but i want to thank fema and the army corps, coast guard and others that were there on the ground and are providing assistance. i know that this action report really provides a blueprint on how to have improvements and make things better. i'm trusting that fema and the other agencies are really taking those things to heart. you know, the sign of maturity is recognizing when you have done things wrong. and learning from them and just moving forward. but one of the things i wanted to ask these individuals about in particular were some of the issues that we still have. in april 20th, we sent a letter to administrator brock long which i had asked him to consent to submit into the record. this letter has been signed not only by myself but also the their of this committee -- the

chair of this committee, bill schuster and others, requesting support of some of the issues that we have. without objection, can that be admitted into the record? >> yes, it may. >> thank you. one of the things we're concerned about that i'd like to bring to your attention, mr. byard, as well as mr. alexander, if you can assist in answering this question is with regard to debris removal. the u.s. army corps is working under mission assignment to remove all of the vegetative marine debris from the territory. this work will be completed in september. however, large stockpiles of debris remaining with hurricane season upon us again is very concerning. i know there's been some discussion about bidding this out and ensuring where it can be kept. we were given an extension of the local share on this.

but due to the army corps, a bid protest which they believe will be overcome, debris will not be removed until the end of december. if no extension that long, the government of the virgin islands will be hit with a 10% local cost share. so my question is mr. byard, will fema support 100% federal share extensions since the delay is not in control of the government of the virgin islands? >> that's a good question. as you know debris has been -- you know, difficult task in the virgin islands. i was down a month or so and you're right, there's still a lot of work to do there. what we'll do is definitely work with the governor. you know, once -- if we have received a request i don't want to sound ignorant to that it will be working itself out. if we have not received the request we'll look into that. i spoke to bill vogel yesterday and i spoke to also mike byrd

who is going over to -- >> so you'll work with the governor and try to do that if necessary because this is outside of our control. any cost share for us is a great burden. >> yes. >> the second question i have is with regard to the step program. the step program is one which can be supportive of individuals. this is the program that allows temporary repair of homes in the virgin islands. i know that there was some back and forth with regard to the step program because the limit initially for the step program was $20,000. however the blue roof program we know ran an average of about $25,000 per roof. we understand that that has been increased. the step is now at $25,000. i know that the governor of the virgin islands has a request in for $35,000 per home. are you willing to support that

request at this time? >> well, what i do know is that we have authorized the use of the step program for any home in the territory with a blue roof. so -- >> would that include -- there's one thing that's really important to us. you did allow the step was used for rental properties in new york city after hurricane sandy. >> yes, ma'am. >> but to date you have refused to allow that for low income renters in the virgin islands and some of those do in fact have blue roofs on them. are you -- will you be willing to reconsider that? >> what i would like to do is get back to you, representative, and the reason i say that is because we have the multilease repair program under the individual assistance program. i want to see if we -- where that program is when it deals with multifamily facilities. and also the step so i'll have my staff take that for action and if it's okay to get back, because i want to make sure i give you a answer on that. >> i'm out of time, but since

you said you said on the record i'm going to hold you to coming to my office. bill vogel has been good about being there on the ground and answering any questions that we have, but i have had a little difficulty in getting individuals from the -- from here at headquarters to come into my office and have conversations. i know we all have the same interests in mind. and i'm not trying to be, you know, the bad guy all the time. i really do want to see how we can work together and make this better particularly as we are preparing people in the virgin islands for this new hurricane season. also i know my time is up, but i want to thank the army corps of engineers for committing to having biweekly meetings with me, giving me an update of what they're doing. that's been really helpful and i'm very happy for the cooperation and the relationship that our office has with them. thank you, i yield back. >> thank you. mr. gallagher? >> thank you.

i apologize for being late. i hope we're not going to rehash ground or go over ground that's already been tread. but in fema's action report -- this is a question for mr. byard, the delivery of food to -- can you explain what happened with regards to commodities in 2017 and what adjustments you have made in 2018 particularly to address the potential needs of the territories should this be another hurricane? >> yes, sir. so your first question was, you know, the 2017 issue. so, you know, again, as we pointed out in the report, all of our national planning, all of the deliberate planning we do is build around -- built around a three legged stool.

you have local, you have state and federal government support, specifically when you talk about logistical movements of commodities. what we quickly found in the commonwealth is two of the legs were not there. i don't mean that to be disparaging, what i mean is you know we had a lot of impacted first responders who were survivors on the commonwealth. so we got -- we had the ability to get the commodities and it was taken from the port, for example, to get it out to the more terrain municipalities. we did action crisis planning on the ground, you do that to assess the needs and move out. that was accomplished. so what are we doing in 2018? as i mentioned earlier one of the targeted hiring initiatives is in our logistics. everything we do is about logistics. so we are hiring more teams or more individuals that will staff teams called incident support

teams that we can send down to further expand our foot print for the last mile of logistics. currently on the caribbean -- in the caribbean, we have about 4600 staff, fema staff that are doing the recovery mission. they're dual trained to do the response. we have staff, we have communications, satellites communications in each municipality. we have backup generators already installed in critical facilities. we have done logistical exercises, where we had one warehouse going into 2017, we have five on the island now. where we had thousands of commodities and maybe in water and mres we have millions now. we have done exercises with the municipalities where we moved commodities from the distribution centers out into the more rural or difficult terrain municipalities. we did that exercise of movement but didn't take the commodities back. they're safe and secure in storage. we are well positioned from that standpoint in 2018 than we were

in 2017. >> i appreciate that. administrator paulison, you have extensive experience as a firefighter. what do you think is the most important thing we can do as a nation to curb devastating wildfires like the ones we have experienced in 2017? >> thank you for that question. i think it goes along with the mitigation that we talked about earlier. about setting aside monies to -- because mitigating from wildfires is not any different than mitigating from any other type of disaster. it's looking at what -- what are the issues, what are the risks and then having enough funding to deal with the risks. so i think that we need to -- i encourage this committee to look very clearly at that 6% of predisaster mitigation. states like your state, california, all of the western states out there are having a very, very difficult time. i mean, we have lost so many homes. we have had fatalities out

there. we have had infrastructure destroyed, we have had water systems destroyed because of wildfires out there. and not having the right types of materials in place to withstand those types of disasters. so having a state having enough money with predisaster mitigation to deal with those types of things i think will go a long way to mitigating the disaster -- to protecting our homes and businesses from the wildfires. >> thank you. i yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you. chair recognizes ms. norton for five minutes. >> thank you very much. this is a very timely hearing and i'll tell you why in a moment. this is a question i suppose best addressed to mr. byard, but also to mr. alexander because the question i'm asking implicates very deeply the federal presence with the climate change throughout the country we are seeing increasing flooding. that's been alluded to already

in this hearing. there was sufficient concern about flooding here in the nation's capital, that we have a levee on the mall, mr. alexander, the corps of engineers was involved with as well. to protect the federal presence, yet in realtime yesterday we had a disastrous flood in this region. and nobody who lives here or who was here unless you were in the capitol and didn't have to go out could have missed what happens -- what happened and it seems to me raises questions in realtime about flood preparedness even in the area of the nation's capital. a portion of the george washington parkway was closed in both directions and to show you just how close or how it implicated the capitol is water poured into at least one metro

stop and that happened to have been capital south. the one closest to the capitol of the united states. so everybody it seems to me ought to wonder is anybody protected in the united states if that close that capitol itself we could have had such a flood. so my question really goes to a real test. we in the district of colombia we have built on both water fronts. the southeast and the southwest water front. many, many areas built on the water front so this question implicates new york and many other areas of the united states. because the waterfront is a very ripe area for revenue. on the south -- by the way, if you go to the southwest waterfront, we call it the wharf. we finished phase one.

looks like the whole thing is finished but phase two is yet to come. we are building on the southeast water front called capital river. again, that's ongoing. there will be another ten years of building so i have to ask you, is it safe to build on water fronts? what does fema require, what does the corps of engineers require? what have they required of those who are building on the water front to make sure that those areas are not flooded with a huge -- to the jurisdictions involved, not to mention to the private sector. can anybody build on the waterfront? what do you have to do to build on the waterfront in the united states today? i have no information that the waterfront was implicated but i would be a fool to sit here and say that everything is fine unless you tell me that they're either regulations or safeguards

that have been required or are required for all who build on the water front. i would like to hear from both of you since the federal presence is involved. mr. byard? >> yes, ma'am. you know, the majority of or population as you know lives on the waterfront. as with the state of alabama the governor asked me how do we help evacuations, ban air conditioning 50 feet from the coasts and people will stop coming. >> you have to build on the water front. >> absolutely. i would look at initiatives passed by the committee. the incentive to build stronger. and -- excuse me, the bipartisan. >> you're telling me that when people -- when building occurs on the waterfront, i don't know what you mean by incentives. those who build understand either they're required or there

are economic incentives to do so. >> what i'm saying let me rephrase that. part of the authorities that were granted in the bipartisan budget act that was passed was the incentives to build more -- at a more resilient rate. fema has no authority over necessarily over what is built. that is a local and state issue. >> of course you have mitigation authority. >> we have mitigation authority. again, working with the eligible applicant. there's not mitigation authority we can direct or tell, you know, a local business how to build. we would work with the district in that case to see what are the local codes of the district. i don't know that. you know, fema is not in the position to know that. but i would -- i will let the corps talk -- >> mr. alexander? >> yes, ma'am, i'll be quick. you know, as mr. byard just

said, i mean, the corps has no authority or you have sight on the district or -- >> i can't hear you, sir. >> as mr. byard just said, the corps has no authority under which it can direct any -- the district or any state or locality on what they can build or what they cannot build. but the corps does urge local governments to, you know, enforce their zoning and certainly enforce building to establish codes. and if you're going to build on the -- you know, on the waterfront, whether it's river rain or coastal, you know, make sure you're out of the floodplain. you may have to do that through standoff or through elevation. it's the major reason that we do shore protection projects along the nation's beaches. it is not primarily for recreation it's for the protection of infrastructure and the economy. >> thank you very much. >> thank you.

we'll begin a second round of questions. i would like to remind all members today's the annual hot dog luncheon so we'll hold everyone strictly to five minutes. in february as part of the bipartisan budget act of 2018 congress enacted a provision that will allow fema to incentivize mitigation through the increase of the federal cost share of disaster assistance. mr. byard, what is the status of fema's implementation of these provisions? >> yes, sir. we have a working group that's currently convened, that's looking at how do we best implement and as you heard administrator paulison say earlier, we need to look at the pilot program so it will allow us flexibility on how we want to do that. we want to take full advantage of the authority that congress granted us in the process. it fits the administrator's strategic plans so you know

definitely we're looking at that. but we want to do it right to start with. so that we have the intent of the provision as laid out by the act. >> thank you. administrator paulison, what principles do you think should be driving the mitigation incentives of fema? >> thank you. i think the most important thing it's not a give away program. that the states have to do certain things to qualify for that extra money. have a statewide building plan in place, have a rock solid mitigation plan. have done an assessment of the risk and put those mitigation dollars towards alleviating those risks. i think if -- we need to make sure that we are not wasting the taxpayer dollars but we are giving the dollars to states who have done things to reduce cost. you know, we had $200 million, $200 billion last year. if we had put strong mitigation in place for 2018 perhaps next year it won't be $200 billion.

with the same amount of storms. so you know our conversation with fema is, you know, they're doing a great job of putting -- getting this thing going. but let's make sure that the states do what is necessary to mitigate the disaster costs. otherwise we are wasting our money. ms. gardner and -- would you think are the biggest challenges related to a cost share adjustment program designed to incentivize mitigation ? adaptability of funding streams is a factor for us. if we look at and incentivize innovations, we have to be able to plan. mitigation measures take a long time to put into place. i think along those parties is to simplify or take the complexity out of fema and everything we can do to reduce

the complexity and build up to come -- predictability will help us to be better mitigate her's. -- mitigate her spirit and to build on that, we definitely share the same idea that the actions that david paulison and mr. -- discussed, are all challenges we face. but for me state and local perspective, the more you do in policy to add incentives, it just helps us to reiterate the importance of those mitigation steps and he gives us the leverage we need to do those mitigation steps even though they are lengthy and costly. there are other things to spend that money on. the more incentives that are there at all levels, and as i mentioned earlier directly to partners and citizens would also be of benefit, the more

you serve better there he gives us more leverage to backup the mitigation projects and hopefully do more the future. and the chair recognizes miss -- five minutes. i just want to go back to some questions i asked earlier. as you know in your generalized answer, i have some specific questions i want to ask for the record. can you very specifically provide to the subcommittee a detailed justification or the project worksheets under which -- is requesting reimbursement for power restoration in puerto rico? can you give us that information? i just want to make sure, you want to ask for the project worksheets that fema is working with press on for the remaining category b work for all of

that. for all of it the prior and remaining. the remaining work, as we close on the emergency work, the permanent restoration which is two different categories of work as you know, is then under different authority. so the estimates in out there. they were not there for the -- there is no forward project worksheet if you will for the remaining work. can you give us an accounting of what they did that you are paying them back for ? it is a very simple common sense terms things people understand can you give us that or will you? i will check with our counsel to make sure, but we have nothing to hide. they should be made for the record i would think. thank you come i look forward to getting it. i would like to go back to mr.

alexander to continue a question that was asked by mr. --. i guess we have contradictory information but in the letter that we got from fema that was dated last night, that it said that that 2 million generators at the power plant will be demobilized on august 18 is that not accurate,? we are working with fema. to extend the nation assignment for several months. i believe through potentially midoctober. that is the october powerplant that will be demobilized. that is to go off-line july 18. but you are trying to extend the other two ? you did not make that clear in your other answer. i apologize. there are three major generators we brought in. the intent is they are currently two -- assignment on 18 august.

right on the islands, the offices are working with the corps in puerto rico to extend that mission assignment for several more months into the fall. if that does not work out the deadline is august 18, right ? that would not be our decision, ma'am. the current mission assignment is august 18. the albacore generator will be demobilized tomorrow evening. i just wanted to be sure that was clear. it sounded like you were not going to demobilized the other two that there wasn't any question about it. also, i would like to go back to the point where making about animals. we know that people are much more likely to leave a disaster area if they can take their pets or they know what is going to happen to them. we saw in the last disaster, i think it was harvey, the pet shelters all over texas were taking in rescued animals.

they used fema resources to do that yet there is little or no reporting on how those funds were used. that is why ms. comstock and i introduced a bipartisan bill called the pet aid act just to do minimum reporting. back to fema about how resources are used, how pets are reunited, how they are geared for common sense. i would ask the local and the state emergency management folks what they think about that bill if they have any suggestions for it and that they can help us work and get that passed and will it make the job easier and also be more accountability. mr. sheehan, ms. gardner? at the local level it will help with accountability and it will help again with leveraging and helping us to reiterate they meet -- need. because apathy is the biggest challenge we have with all citizens.

it takes about seven warning messages to get people to take an action to protect themselves. animals accentuate that problem. they will not leave their animals behind. the more we can do on the front and to explain what is going to happen and what the process will look like and that their animals will be taken care of, the more willing they will be to evacuate and to do those things proactively instead of waiting until they are already impacted. we do know that people are less likely to evacuate and that there are additional complications of people are unable to take their pets with them. this is been the logistical challenge where people bring pets and our idea of pets usually it is dogs, pat -- cats, birds, people sometimes have other ideas and what those pets and if they require special attention but i think

we have a lack of data around this and reporting would be helpful in this helping manage it. if we are going to keep managing this, we need that data. the chair recognizes mr. rep. brian mast for five minutes. thank you chairman, mr. alexander let's get back to the okeechobee of the lake. they said within us the release of water to the treasure coast of florida from lake okeechobee that and their risk calculation was a threat of lies for 36,000 people south of lake okeechobee. that goes into the risk assessment matrix. knowing the situation, one inch of water, six inches of water, one foot of water could be the difference of failure or not failure on that 730 mile square lake of lake okeechobee during a storm. again, i point out the corps of engineers absolutely manages and pays attention to every inch of water that flows into lake okeechobee, sits on lake o

too -- lake okeechobee, or gets discharged out of that lake it to some other body of water that has no business being there. now, i want to ask again, you do not have the numbers for how much water is maintained on lake okeechobee for the purpose of drinking water. sarah, i do not believe i ever said that the core does not manage and knows exactly how much water is in the lake itself. that being said, lake okeechobee is not manage for flood control multipurpose reservoir. we work on a balance between 20 -- 12 1/2 and 15 and half feet. that balance is to meet multiple purposes environmental water supply, water control, flood navigation, but at the end of the day, we have to place a premium on risk. at the end of the day it is risk.

so if you are keeping more water on the lake than what should be on there, then that puts that risk according to the corps of engineers 36,000 people south of lake okeechobee. so i am formally requesting from the corps of engineers that you tell me exactly how much water you keep in terms of inches or feet on lake okeechobee or in terms of gallons or the purpose of agriculture irrigation or the purpose of drinking water in the communities or the purpose of the agreements of the tribes. what are the amounts through the use permits consumptive, that is kept on the lake because the corps of engineers needs to manage how much water is on the lake for their own purposes in addition to risk management and a number of other things, how much water for each of those i am making a formal request for the corps of engineers to get that answer to me. i have one more question, i recently sent a letter to the corps of engineers asking in the name of hurricane preparation and risk management, is water that is being released

into my community out of lake okeechobee, the court has a discretion based upon pollution concerns that could be in the water. i asked a specific question. what level of pollution or toxins of water in lake okeechobee would be considered too great of a level with the corps of engineers would say we cannot discharge water to these epicenters of human population the crutcher -- treasure coast of florida or the water coast of florida what level of toxins would be too great and the answer was entirely avoided. i want to ask you, if there was cyanide in the water, with the corps of engineers sees discharging water to these epicenters of human population ? i am not avoiding your question i just don't have the answer. again, i am offering an engagement whether it is in dc are down in your district with the district leadership with experts at your headquarters and your army corps to discuss this matter. i am not an expert with lake

okeechobee. i received your question in advance and if i had specifics i would've provided it today. if there were let in the water with the corps of engineers sees discharging waters to these epicenters of human population ? i cannot answer that. i don't know what the tolerable levels are. if there was arsenic in the water, with the corps of engineers sees discharging water to my community and epicenter of the population that is not directly correct it -- connected to lake okeechobee and there discharging the water as a result of risk management hurricane preparedness that they are discharging water right now clearly enough water would not discharge earlier in the season. again, i do not have the specific answers. i have to believe that there are other regulating agencies who do pay attention to what those toxic levels are. i am confident that they work

hand-in-hand with the core as we look at those releases. again i would have to offer a detailed laid out we have giving those answers and they involve i'm sure officials on the court itself. inks for answering this round of questioning. thank you all for your testimony. your comments have been helpful for today's discussion. if there are no further questions i ask unanimous consent that the record of today's hearing remain open until such time as witnesses have provided answers to any questions that may be submitted to them in writing. and a unanimous consent that the record remained open for 15 days for any additional comments and information submitted by members and witnesses to be included by record of today's hearing. without objection, the order. would like to think our witnesses again for their testimony today. if no other members have anything to add, the subcommittee stands adjourned.

this evening un ambassador nikki haley joins israel's ambassador to the u.s. for an event marking the 70th anniversary of israel's independence. as part of the summit hosted the group christians united for israel, we have covered starting at 7:30 pm eastern on c-span two.

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