the post-katrina management. when we came into office, they had started to begin the implementation of that. i saw some areas we could improve upon. when you have large scale events and no formal request, if we think it is going to be declared we can keep moving. that was our shift to start putting more emphasis on if we think something bad has happened we respond. that if the state and local government. the next part of that response needs to be in motion. we can always turn things off and we don't get time back. that was putting an emphasis on time. do not wait until you have all the information and facts. respond to the event and adjust downward.

>> does that mean you're on the ground before the hurricane? >> absolutely. we spend a lot of time talking about hurricanes, our ability to advanced.in we had teams in every state, a potential impact before landfall. we have moved supplies for rescue teams. it is also about other events that don't give you warnings, like earthquakes, and the ability to plan against likely scenarios, build that relationship for our state and local partners, and know what the initial deployments look like, versus waiting for an assessment of how bad it could be. fema has of the things looked at and has been in the news lately is cyber security and cyber attacks. you mentioned the energy sector a few moments ago.

what have been the changes in preparation for the potential of a large-scale power outage? look at fema standpoint, from the stamp when of the consequences and not necessarily the event. ciber has a lot of history and a largeave yet to see impact. it doesn't mean it will not or cannot happen. if you look at the types of things we have dealt with with large-scale to -- large-scale as well ases non-cyber events that has caused large-scale power outages, you plan for those events. the real question is how long will the power be out in how large of an area? we plan against the consequences. that is how we approach cyber. it is one of the consequences and durations of that.

host: there are a bunch of mayors who have lost their job after not responding to snowstorms. what kind of mandate did president obama give you? out it tell you how to prioritize it? was meeting for the 2009 hurricane season. my approach is to take the team and exercise without notice, really push us to get into areas quickly, don't wait for the assessments. his basic direction was he didn't do it. relationship has really been one of making sure from his perspective that the team is working as one team. but also empowering me by saying if it is a 50-50 decision, lean

forward. don't wait until everybody has the right answer. know that you're going to make mistakes but empowering us to take those steps. not knowing how bad something is is a way we speed up that response. >> is there any potential drawback? fema has a reputation, whether it is earned or not. there are people skeptical of the federal government taking over. is there a danger of them showing up before something is formally requested? >> better to be fast then late. i have been communicating this with our state partners, with governors and part of the natural governing association. always try to make them understand is we don't do this in isolation, but by the time we have all the information to formulate what you need, it

is too late. the risk is the slowest to respond, we are going to meet the need of the survivors in those time frames. our cost will increase dramatically and try to recover from that. we may not be always needed. it is always about a 1-1 transaction. >> one of the things president obama has emphasized during his 10 year is the issue of climate change from the fema standpoint. resilience to climate change. extent have the initiatives you have been putting in place, to what extent are they poised to continue regardless of the fact we are

going to have a new administration. >> we were responding to that. the president tells me she had done a discussion about climate change. we have to look at how we are adapting to that. we have always looked at past eight at to make decisions about building for the future. we don't have enough weather data to make intelligent decisions. we are hearing thousand year vets and 5000 year vets. why are we looking at past data to make decisions about infrastructure investment. trying to move the dynamics to not looking at past data. industry,e insurance particularly the reinsurance industry. this is not something i think we , but whate skill set

does it mean for investments. most everything we pay for in disasters is because of uninsurance. we have ended up reimbursing local and state governments. away provincehem sector is incentivized to ensure those risks. and then have them set the goal post of what we should be building to and how we build versus a subsidy from the taxpayer, which doesn't always change that behavior long-term. environment with what we are going to deal with. new construction and new risk, --should be looking at how

versus you the taxpayer, who absorbs this risk when we don't do these things looking at the future. >> i understand what of the initiatives is the so-called disaster deductible. it is a way to incentivized states to pay for less of a cost increase in terms of disaster result -- disaster response. that initiative is not complete. can you talk about the future of the disaster deductible initiative. >> it is driven by the county office and inspector general, who says fema's threshold -- we should raise that threshold. it would be an incremental increase and right now it is probably one dollar 41 per capita. way we have calculated disaster cost for public assistance. they would recommend doubling or tripling of that.

this would become crippling for large states. california sees disasters of $100 million and getting other states with double their risk and seeing $3 million disasters being declared. instead of raising the threshold, don't go back to the first dollar. if they hit the threshold for disaster declaration we always go back to the first dollar. deductibles, the deductibles in the auto insurance. in many cases you can get incentives if putting in alarm systems are putting in fire extent wishes. raising it up higher, which we think is detriment of the states. keep the current thresholds.

give them more credit for that. it buys down the risk. the idea being that this would become a way for states to get credit for doing things on the deductible that won't be that great. state and local governments to take more ownership, coding to a disaster risk, still building in that environment. >> out west wildfires have forme a massive challenge state and federal budgets. and get wildfire recovery and response is funded differently in the response to others.

how does that challenge fema and the states themselves? >> two different fires. they are reimbursed to major departments. then you have the fires on nonfederal lands. the state and local governments for those, which are their responsibilities. what happened in gatlinburg was not an anomaly. of wildfires areas is actually greater on the east coast than it is the west coast. when you see train -- see changing drought patterns, they action have more homes at risk outside of federal lands and anywhere else in the country.

we have two competing interests. and everything else. fema has always supported and reimbursed local governments for everything else but the federal firefighting. issues ofun into the how do you appropriate funds for the primary federal responsibility versus the local governments. and the competition within those disaster relief funds were not only wildfires the disasters. >> we have about 10 minutes left. >> we are a few weeks away from a new administration. with thehad meetings trump transition team to talk about the transfer of management of the agency? >> not yet, i have a meeting scheduled but our transition teams have been working on that. we wanted to focus on telling the story of what we did and why we did it.

i don't assume to predetermine what the next teams parties are going to be. i wanted to do something more. having been a state director, i have a lot of background to say why. tell the story to the incoming team, not because this is what you have to do. everything from sequestration and budgets and lack of budgets and the changes we have received both from katrina and from sandy. here is what we have accomplished. these are the gaps we still have. gaps, we saw at what we were prepared and capable of doing. trap that state locals and the federal government get into.

we recognize the abductions off of the west coast in the u.s.. a multistate intensive response to an earthquake and corresponding tsunami that exceeds our capabilities as respond to disasters and forcing us to look at a lot of different things, including international response teams. considering the unthinkable's and the improbable's. you fail as government. >> you mention the budgeting challenges congress has faced with three sequestration. for a lot of agencies, this is a man -- this is a minor inconvenience. >> compressed in short periods statee, i grew up in the

of florida where you have budgets, you knew what you have. this is how much money. giving a budget to an agency. agencies to do a better job in a more efficient way. as you go through that process, congress isn't really able to come back and make the changes. as an administrator it is hard to anticipate what may becoming through -- if you're going to be going to reduce funding for areas, you need to time to make sure you carry out those missions and make this decision strategically. of the fundamental things i would encourage congress in the new administration is make it

seem like baseball. if you want agencies to carry out their agendas. having the budget with the attention of what you want done will allow them to more successfully execute data versus the short-term gaps, not very efficient and sometimes ends up costing more money because you are in a series of short-term processes that you can't make the strategic investment. >> one of the things the senate will be doing is vetting your replacement to the agency. what questions will be fundamental for the senators to really ask at those hearings? it finally defined what the job of the administrator was. both sides are going to have their opinions about it.

the understand the full authorities and will be the principal adviser to the national security staff, president, and homeland security and congress. those responsibilities are much more expensive than many people outside of the programs no. i would focus in on making sure that the incoming incumbent fully understands what congress intended from those changes, and they can understand and explain how they can carry it out. the was one of the things i found going to transition, that many of these were not clearly expressed or twist was the assumption that you would know about them. make sure the nominee understand that and articulate what they need.

climate go back to change and the work the obama administration has done. there is political discord over whether climate change is happening. has that impacted your work at all? ardor minefields you have to navigate as you are talking to other members of congress? >> absolutely, use talk to some folks about climate change and it shuts down the conversation. workdn't we be moving to -- should be working to move risk away from the taxpayers? are we doing it in such a way that the taxpayer receives a benefit greater than that exposure? or are we subsidizing risk below the point where behavioral change and we have a risk that is not sustainable nor beneficial to the taxpayer. people talk about fema in the third person. electro mind you it is your tax dollars going out in these disasters.

are we insuring risk and moving it to the private sector. are you the taxpayer subsidizing risk? and why did that seem to be growing and not changing. why can we not move this more towards the private sector? ien we have those debates, think we can get past what is causing things and more in the terms of how do we adapt build,ally, how do we and how do we grow risk that we as taxpayers don't want to grow or see benefit from. >> the congress is going to be considering very quickly some type of infrastructure package. we heard numbers floating around, $1 trillion of infrastructure proposals. what do you think needs to be crafted in that proposal to ensure that resilience is considered, or is there a way to consider resilience in that

package that you would >> it underestimates risk in too many cases. if we are going to make these investments, let's built the risk profiles we see coming. in some cases this has nothing to do with climate and more to do with usgs and their understanding of seismic risk. and as better information comes out, how does the system performance those events? we don't want an earthquake to occur and find out we should have built it better. there was data that said we should have done it. lookisk profile should be at your risk, look at what the future risk may be and look at what the projections may look like and incorporate that into the design and engineering. whether it is changes this way

and we operate to change risk profiles. >> do you think there is a rule for congress as they write this infrastructure package to ensure some of those considerations are taken into account when there is public money or some type of tax credits? >> absolutely. do you want the full amount in 20 years? no. we don't want infrastructure that will fail earlier than its lifespan. if you are going to invest in , wouldn't you want to to last the whole time it is there without substantial prepares or potential of damaging events? this isn't like shooting for the moon. this is good sound practices of building stuff that will last its lifetime in the hazardous environment it is going to be in an not hope that bad things don't happen, and using the best data and science at the point we build it.

>> you mentioned a possible earthquake in the abduction zone. the subject of a new yorker story a few years ago the cost of want to panic in seattle and portland. what keeps you up at night? what is the disaster that worries you the most? >> i don't stay up at night, i sleep pretty good. my fear is lack of disasters or areas that haven't had disasters have a tendency to think it cannot happen here, it cannot be that bad. it has, it will, it will continue. as a nation we cannot just fall back on what we're doing, we have to take a look at what happens. the best way to do it that is built in such a way we minimize those risks. it is that tendency to fall back to what we are capable of doing. >> the outgoing administrator of

federal emergency agency. thank you for being this week's guest on newsmakers. then, let's start with you about where fema is compared to where it was eight years ago after superstorm sandy. >> certainly during the obama administration there has been a lot more emphasis on climate change. i think that gets caught up in some partisan ideological battles. reset correctly how often do you hear about a weather event or is storm that is supposed to be every 500 year, everyone thousand year. what we heard from him was the extent on which they're putting an emphasis on resilience. and trying to be forward with, we heard hopefulness, that they act with some level of

forethought in making sure that is not go away. >> what is your viewpoint on what it has done in the last three years? >> he inherited an agency that was not only reviled by many of the administrators, but also had some bad more our problems. he comes from a state background. he referred to that if you times. he has made the effort to reach out to groups across the country. in an era where everything is viewed towards a partisan political lens, when these floods hit louisiana, the lieutenant governor, who is as

far to the right as a politician as elected in the united states of america, he was praised for his work being there on time. yet to beesponse is an issue in the last few years. what is the perspective of congress and the money it allocates? >> i think his read was noting there is an understanding that certainly went a step -- when it happens toes both red states and blue states. the proof in the pudding very soon. or not theer principles of the administrator were discussing to ensure that if we are going to have these public expenditures, direct federal spending and democrats will likely see some kind of tax credits scenario.

i think one thing that will be worth looking for is these projects that are undertaken have some type of very robust resilience and flood planning and other type of disaster planning. >> what do we know about the direction of fema in the upcoming trump administration? >> very little. we were speaking a few minutes ago. the trumpet ministration has not said anything about who the next director will be. they have offered some party stark takes on climate change. not fall in line with how the climate is changing and how humans are involved in that. it is a pretty clear scott this clear sign on where the trouble demonstration is going to come down on climate change. -- her that means fema will

>> what is congress saying about the future of fema? as the agency budgeting goes forward they have the boots on the ground capacity they need in response to some of the events we have seen. wildfires in tennessee, i think the one thing people are waiting is to see there has been this mystery of sorts around how the trump administration will deal with this. with the cabinet that is emerging we have some people who are very much understanding the topic of the agency they're going to be running. frankly little background in the topic and the mission of their agency. certainly a technocratic knowledge. to seebe very curious

which direction the trump administration goes in terms of picking somebody who does have a background in this. >> we will leave it there. thank you very much for your time. >> tonight. was part of the image making where harrison was the people,e for the four and he was this rich man in washington sneering at the poor people. acres.n had thousands of he was a wealthy man but he was portrayed as the champion. some gave speeches. some wrote pamphlets. they were criticized by the democrats.

>> how the 1840 campaign changed presidential elections forever. tonight at eight eastern on c-span's q&a. >> the soho forum is a monthly debate series in new york looking at issues from a libertarian perspective. the topic was when should the united states go to war? it began with the stand up comedian andrew keaton. this is about 90 minutes. >> thank you. again, the resolution, the united states should he prepared to use force in defense of friendly nations, even when not subject to the direct threat of force. please vote on your cell phone or your smartphone, undecided, yes or no. you will vote this time and after the debate is over. as part of our tradition, we are going to be closing the vote

before the debate begins, but you have a little time to think about it while we have our next event. we will begin with a warm-up act from a great live or terry and comic. last month, we had dave's -- libertarian comic. last month, we had to dave smith. this month, we have andrew heaton. andrew needs no introduction, except to say that he is the author of a terrific book called, "laughter is better than communism." here to defend that highly contentious claim, and her heaton. andrew: thank you. i want to thank whoever it was who preemptively clapped for me before the rest of you. you are my favorite. are you all excited about foreign-policy debate? yeah!