his mind. that's the reason that we roll-out of a legislative text or even a discussion of what text is being now, because appropriations committee staffers have been preparing some options. they're not formally preparing them, but they've been told to caseome ideas ready in they do need to go ahead with the two-week continuing or even longer. basically these committees are preparing options. they want to have something ready in case the house needs to pass something quickly. they could also come back on if it looks like there's going to be a proabout thed protracted fight or if there's an appetite for house republicans to deliver that $5 a separate bill. right now they're not clear they would have the votes to do that, given the number of absences in the house recently. lead ther mccarthy did schedule open and putting members on standby, in case they decide to add some additional votes next week.

>> sarah ferris, reporting for politico. we can find her articles at politic.com. tweets @sarah n. ferris. thanks so much. >> thank you. on newsmakers this week is the administrator of fema, brock long. emergency a career in response management at the state, federal level and in the private sector. sworn in in june of 2017 and has had quite a year with category 5 with two hurricanes. one of the biggest wildfire years in history and a category 7 earthquake in alaska. so lots of calls for your folks action.to >> glad to be here this morning. >> let me introduce the two reporters. ron nixon covers homeland times.y for the new york and this is the homeland security and immigration reporter. >> thanks for doing this. the question i'd like to start

there's someink common misperceptions about fema's role in emergency management and dealing with natural disasters. could you lay that out? what's fema's role and what's and local first responder's role? break those down for us, please. mission iss incredibly complex. it's a lot more than just the response, which is often covered on t.v., when big events occur. obligation to provide billions of dollars worth of pre-disaster grant, mitigation funding. also we run continuity of government programs to make sure branch works on its worst day as well as we're position now to be providing billions of dollars to help americans overcome the last two hurricane seasons and wildfire seasons. the best way to describe what we the best response and recovery is when it's locally managed, andte federally supported.

fema is not designed to be a first responder, nor should it be. and it's my job to coordinate firepower, to help that governor meet his or her goals orand recovery preparedness goals and it ultimately translates to the local level. >> now, we know that in 2017, it was a very big year. that hurricane irma, hurricane florence, maria, cost the government more that $265 billion in damages, especially california wildfires. what has fema learned because of the hurricanes that occurred in 2017? and what are those ways that you how you respond to natural disasters in the next upcoming years? a tremendous amount. before i took office, the years without a major landfall in hurricanes. i guess bad luck. to put the magnitude of what's happened over the last 16 months into perspective, we

packed 38 years of our entire history into that 16-month time period. the amount of disaster that we will provide as a result of the last two is ther calendar years equivalent of what the agency has done in its entire history. rethink ourus to entire business enterprise. i fully believe that a bigger fema is not the answer. a whole community approach that has to be put into play to be able to properly prepare but recover. so it starts with, you know, a prepared culture. citizen -- you know, citizens being financially sill yent. resilient, properly insured, and neighbor helping through a strong state-level program, then putting fema in a position to events, notthe big the run of the mill everyday disaster that we typically deal with. >> there was a report that came out in september, the government accountability office, saying that fema is very overwhelmed by

the national disasters that occurred in 2017. they stated there were staff shortages, that more than 50% of personnel was not deemed qualified in certain roles. addressed those issues? >> yes. so we roughly have about 20,000 right now nationwide. one of the things that we typically want to do is do a lot hires to create a backbone. for example, in puerto rico, we're one of the largest employers in puerto rico right now. we've made over 1800 local hires. to build an emergency backbone on the commonwealth that didn't exist before the storm, to correct those problems. the whole issue about we're sending unqualified people out field is not an accurate assessment. we have what's called the national qualification system different positions that you can go in and basically try to qualify for. accepted an emergency manager into the field with 30 years of experience that haven't yet has her task book

signed off to be a certified public information officer out the field. so the national qualification system is where that whole story started. it's not accurate. we would never send people unqualified out into the field. my opinion. >> can i follow up? reports,king about another one people criticized the advance materials planning, which was an issue specifically in puerto rico. they have, i think, nine thatfic recommendations they're offering to you. how do you plan to incorporate that assessment going forward? the gao report lines up with our action report. it was an open and honest assessment. argue that that was such an honest report, asking the government agency to truly open up the hood of the car to say, hey, everybody look inside. this is where we're okay. we've got to improve. but what it lends to is a bigger fema is not the answer. okay. we can provide a tremendous

capability when it comes to ice, you know, mre's, generator power, whatever else. question is, what is the state's capacity to do it? do they have their own logistics capability? contracts established? even down to the local level, contractsat are the in place to provide their own citizens emergency power, food and water? particularly for no-notice events like major earthquakes. it takes time for declarations go into place or for our resources to mobilize. orre not a first responder 911. so if that's the case, and cascadiae reality of a event or the most recent alaska earthquake, each level of government needs to have their own baseline capability to strengthen the whole system. about howou then talk fema can help in that fema dhs's largesthe sort of granting body? that ins your role in helping these local and state

theirncy managers build capacity so it takes some of the burden off of you? >> yes. big believer in the use of the private sector. we are highly encouraging people up the contracts, to do things such as disaster cost recovery. to manage billions of dollars that come into your do debrisor how to management, emergency power, being able to get their hands on to askors without having the federal government. we become more of a block granting role rather than job onlly doing the behalf of the state and local governments. we're about to roll out a pre-event disaster tool kit that helps states understand what place aheadhave in of time. but there's barriers. there's a handful of states legislation or law get in the way of them being able to set up blue sky day no-cost-retainer contracts. that's where they've got to tear those laws down and be able to be configured in a manner they can do this and reduce hair

fema.ce upon the other thing, i've started an initiative called the integration team concept. to move my staff out of regional offices and embed into the state agencies to make sure we are doing integrative planning, training, exercising, execution together, to make sure helping them of come the -- of come the gaps overcome the gaps they've identified, say, you need a housing plan, these place.ts in let us help you do that on a blue sky day, rather than going the emergency bid process when we're under the gun. >> you talk about this integration team. you had that in place in north carolina. how did that work with the hurricanes there? great. they were on the ground as everything was unfolding, you know, and florence was a tough was aecause it slow-moving event. ofgave us a huge leeway understanding evacuation processes and being able to help. they were there, verifying, you realtime information on, you know, what the state was

requesting and what we were able to them, to prepare storm. onset of the then they're also there to help start get the ball rolling to assessments.amage it was great. they're right there. it's not a team that i have to deploy out there. working with the state. already got strong partnerships in place. 15hink at this point we have teams that are rolled out. hopefully we'll have teams in next0 states within the year and a half. >> in your experience, just handling the natural disasters 2017, do you in ind more funding for fema this year's spending package for disaster relief programs or for programs? >> well, i think, here again, it comes back to emergency management is -- it's like the you're sitting in. it's sport supported by -- supported by four legs. a differentnts thing. the federal government is one leg. that's me coordinated all of the resources down to a governor. the date is a state, local

government. the third leg is the private sector. the fourth leg is prepared citizenry. when all four of those legs of the chair are present, then the disaster preparedness response and recovery phases go well. if anything is missing, if a is not strongnt in emergency management, then that chair is less stable. disasters don't go nearly as well as they should. the question that congress needs are there ihy believe nine states right now that don't even have their own theirday fund to support own citizens if disasters occur in their state? notfema assistance is coming to town? we need to start asking those questions. landbuilding codes, what use planning, what zoning is being put into place? at the local level and state level. the key to disaster resiliency not a bigger budget. it's smart development in areas that are susceptible to known that we've known about for years.

and, you know, quite frankly, if a biggerue to build fema, it puts an unrealistic expectation upon the agency that just can't -- we will never be able to meet. job,now, coming into this you know, there are 20,000 dedicated employees that serve country and serve others. the average deployment right now 136 days for those that have been out in the field. and they get stomped on, ridiculed. they're never doing it fast enough. it's unfortunate. overcome thaty we is if all four of those legs on that chair get stronger and not just fema. >> well, the former fema chief, in augustown, stated that he feels that the u.s. hasn't really learned from hurricane katrina. do you agree with that assessment? >> you know, i do believe that call hazard amnesia is alive and well. many years ofent rebuilding communities after disasters without making them

more resilient. now what we put forward is an initiative called outcomes and recovery. what's called section 428 to say we'rerd act not just going to rebuild a community. billionsgoing to spend of dollars, we're going to do this right, factor mitigation recovery effort, right up-front, so we're not having to replace blown-out infrastructure again and again. you know, you watch states tear down building codes. i think -- and i may be wrong on this, but it's my understanding 2001 buildingthe code, one of the most robust building codes in the country, stripped down this past year. you know, before michael hit. so we gotta start asking those questions as to why, and if, you know -- but i don't want to put fema in a place to where we have to hold back preparedness funding or recovery fundings until proper land use planning

or proper contracts are put into place. but we make it to -- we may get to that point, to force better.ies to get >> a lot of these natural about,rs that you talked forest fires, hurricanes, things that are attributable to climate change. how is the agency adjusting to that? looking at modeling looking atr are you how you're getting funding? doing forat is that the agency in terms of its it responds to these disasters? because as you mentioned, you more than probably anyone else in your position. in quite some time. of the things that i recently did is created the office of resilience. inherited fema, there were a lot of stove pipe programs in place. division, ourion preparedness division, our continuity division, you

know, operated in these silos. we brought them all together under one umbrella called the office of resilience, to be able regardless of what causes the disasters, how do we start to work together to themate them and overcome and make sure that their conversations are coming across? likeso look at things climate variability. it's not just a changing climate. variability, like tonsitions from la niña el niño, which cycles. indicators of hurricane activity is the belt.s conveyor there is clear delineation of increased and decreased periods. we entered into an increased period of hurricane activity back in 1995. make presentations on that, that for the next 30 years, we're gonna really be that weor the fact built a lot of communities in coastable areas along the and we didn't do it to a standard where houses are

storm surgeve the potentials, nor were they wind mitigated. it everen paying for since. >> we have 10 minutes left. >> so on the topic of hurricane been, i know that there's a lot of controversy surrounding the death toll. george washington university put out a study saying that nearly as an effectdied of hurricane maria. the puerto rican government came out with their own data. you said that fema does not count the death toll. think it's fair that fema should be responsible to poll in order to properly assess how much damage a hurricane or natural disaster in an affected community? >> fair question. but we're not set up or designed to do that. have medical examiners that can say, yes, this was directly attributed to hurricane a death due tos heart attacks and i don't think fema needs to be in that role. we have to rely upon the local

and states' ability, the county coroner's capability, and puerto rico is not entirely functional, which is part of the problem. i don't think we'll ever know are directlyhs attributed to maria. a difference. the number that was reported of direct deaths that are reported, like a building collapsed. you know, this was due to from storm surge, whatever it may be. the indirect deaths are always a after any disaster in any community, including florida as a result of michael. clean up debris, get hurt, killed, fall off their roofs. when the power is out, the lights don't work. people die in car crashes. the thing is, you've got to look as well.udies neither one of those studies goes through and says, this is people died orse what the cause was. it was just a trend in the averagesf baseline over time.

and so we have to look at that. is femabottom line thinks that one death is way too many. we work every day to try to prevent that through $2 billion of preparedness grants that goes out, to understanding how to do public alert, warning sure thato make people are heeding evacuation warnings. things,ying different unique things, particularly this year. wirelessd using a emergency alert system to reinforce -- the governors were reinforcing the evacuation message to say get out of here, it's a dangerous place. goes back to our strategic plan too. goal number one is to build a culture of preparedness that does not exist in this country. a lot of times, people live in areas and they don't understand vulnerable. many people don't understand that storm surge due to a hurricane is the primary reason that you see a tremendous amount of damage and storm surge has highest potential to kill

the most amount of people. yet it's classified by wind. think, well, my home is new construction. it will survive the winds. who experience storm surge in michael are not allowed to talk about it. here.stion could you talk about your assessment of there are people that fema would be more effective if it was an than adent agency rather subagency within the department of homeland security. what's your assessment of that? >> that's a tough question. that's a question that's been up for debate. relationshipd inside the department of homeland security. they understand the complexities. speedmoved at lightning to get disasters declared. there's great communication the agency. you know, that's really a question for congress. have a direct line to the president in times of need and by all means, that's occurred there's been a direct line of communication, i never thought i would have so much direct line of communication with the president of the united states. as a result of everything that

we've gone through. tremendous.en >> just to follow up on the question about puerto rico, quickyou please give us a snapshot on the status of recovery there? >> we have a long way to go. as in fema, it's the united states has a long way to go to help the commonwealth recover. here again, fema is one of the greatest assets to the commonwealth, because of the money that we put forward. but there's other agencies involved, such as hud, putting billions of dollars in as well. i think we put over $15 billion repairsto do emergency to the grids and the, you know, trying to bring up it'sstructure to where not -- it's no longer a threat to life, because it's not working. but now is the tough task of say,ng the commonwealth, governor, what is your clear plan to build an energy grid resilient, that will make you more economically viable down the road? we havehe biggest tasks is rebuilding a tremendous amount of schools and repairing

schools. happenre not things that within a week. these are things, you know -- imagine a new school being planned in your community where live. it takes years to do so. and so we are trying to be very theghtful and working with governor to understand what he -- you know, here's what you're entitled to. works.how the money we've broken it out into sectors such as education or health and sectors or transportation sectors to try to go and fix everything simultaneously. you look at just the roadway sections. there were thousands of breaches section.adway it's not something that gets put back over time. i think fema is always facing unrealistic expectations to make communities work, you know, immediately after a disaster. besto rico has the opportunity its ever had to become more economically viable and resilient. it's not solely up to fema to make sure that happens. left.have five minutes >> on the recovery efforts, you senator,epublican enzi, the chairman of the senate

budget committee, he wrote a to fema last month stating that he -- he expressed not properlyt fema giving -- allocating money to puerto rican residents that were to recover from hurricane maria, that the money was instead being used to pay markups and overhead costs. has fema addressed those concerns? >> so, you know, there's a lot of bad information in the media from the standpoint of how the system works. a lot of the contracts that come into question are not our contracts. are commonwealth contracts or local municipal contracts we reimburse. we make sure it was that the costbid, rates are competitive as well, that we're not being gouged or anything like that. work with them. but there's a massive responsibility of insuring that we put down is being put to work correctly. and it can't be done too quick. you know, we have to be methodical about how, you

know -- it's put back together. when you look at the amount of assistance that's been provided to puerto rico, it's unprecedented. we literally have, you know, 100,000 homes roughly, functional. there's direct construction going in and doing that. imagine if i had to come in and 100,000 homes in one of the communities you lived in it. time.es a long there's a lot of assistance going to those in puerto rico. the question for the congress is, this is the biggest opportunity that puerto rico has had. is the commonwealth ready to lead that? particularly with rebuilding a power grid that is sustainable for the future. rebuild power grids. it's not the federal electricity management agency. we grant the money to do that. nor do i have the authority to back in and rebuild the grid. we try to help them with planning efforts. going to take more than fema to help the

commonwealth overcome what happened in maria. >> last couple questions. >> if you could just talk briefly about -- you mentioned continuity of government efforts. it's one of those things that is not a lot known about it. could you just briefly talk about what that is? and fema's role in it? >> basically, continuity of government is making sure that, what fema's role is, is to make sure that the executive branch of government its worst day. can the executive branch of government, regardless of what public, whether it's a health event, whatever it could be, is still in a position to be mission oft its essential and critical functions to the american public. it's a massive job. it requires, you know, the ability to do redundant make sureions and to that the executive branch can work if they've been displaced from a building. a reduction in people, you know, as a result of event or, youh know, you've lost resources to

be able to typically do your job. leads the planning efforts and the process to make sure that happens. but the continuity of government responsibility. it's also the responsibility of agencies,management to make sure the governor can talk with the president at any how does thed governor speak with the municipalities and the level ofp at the local government. it's an incredibly complex job, one of the most important jobs unitedhoulders, in the states. >> final question? >> so you mentioned before about the presidential alert system. now a lot of people have been whether they about want to receive that or not, given kind of the political climate. in given what happened january in hawaii, where, you know, an employee sent -- accidentally sent a ballistic missile alert. and even though it was fault, it caused a lot of chaos. what procedures are in place to make sure that does not happen? >> the alert issue was truly

unfortunate, because hawaii was due diligence to test a very important concept for a very real threat at the time. a nation state threat. they had been through a series of exercises, being proactive, we always encourage that. unfortunately, a simple mistake largely,and it was from what i understand, it boils down to the graphical user digitallalthe interface that they were using. but now they've gone back and in redundancies to make sure that doesn't happen again, with software wasthe designed, to be able to blast that out. originally designed to make sure that the president could get a blast of information all citizens in the united states for any type of emergency. recently had to test that. the system had never been tested. around for a decade. if you don't know something works, you've got to test it. 200 millionell over cell phones, if i remember

correctly, which is a success. that, yousystems know, hopefully we never have to use. thathe bottom line is, is the threats are always evolving and we have to be prepared. sit backnot afford to and, you know, take things for granted. >> fema administrator, brock long, thank you so much for being our guest on newsmakers. >> thank you so much. back to newsmakers, after our conversation with the administrator of fema, brock long. reporters are ron nixon camilla. let me start, because afterwards, we had a brief conversation with the administrator. what are the expectations of a democratic house and what kind fema might have that it hasn't experienced before with a republican congress? camilla? >> well, a lot of house democrats i've talked to, especially on the house, oversight and government reform committee, have said that there needs to be more oversight on fema, that they are very concerned that he didn't agree

the george with washington study that found that nearly 3,000 people died from hurricane maria. he's been very hesitant to really speak on that. that onealways stated death is a death too many. but what we'll see, especially come january, is that more democrats will start, you know, conducting investigations or calling for investigations to understand fema's procedures, because there is a lot of misconceptions about what cannot do.d it's goingink that to be a different environment that thereon't think was the sort of look back from the congressional standpoint, particularly with hurricane what, of what happened, actually were the lessons and then what are they doing about that, as a result of the things were able to go back and look at. and, again, i think there were some misconceptions about what fema could and couldn't do.

thei don't think we know clear picture of what actually happened. what could they do that they do?'t and then what are the things that puerto rico should have of thate to take care they weren't able to take care of for various reasons? administrator made the case several times in our conversation that the public versus itss on fema mandate, there's a gap. >> right. >> what are you learning, reporting in about what the fromc has come to expect feasm and -- fema and what it is able to deliver? a general perception that when a natural disaster happens, fema is supposed to get out food,nd hand water, do all the things that the first responders are supposed to do. think people understand that that's not their role. their role is to back up the responders and that make sure that they have the things that they need. the responsibility, the first responsibility for dealing

with those things are in the as thend local level, administrator said. and i think that's a common fema'seption about what role actually is, because there are a lot of times, you'll hear fema, youing that know, is screwing something up. fema.u go, but that's not and you'll go, okay, what are they supposed to be doing then? there needs to be more education on exactly how these things break out, what their role is versus the state and local role. >> the president, actually in his budget proposal, has called cutting back on some of the fema administers. what's the trump administration's view of how to and local state relationship with the federal government? >> it's a great question, think they truly know at this point. fema is still trying to figure to make sure that what happened in 2017 with the natural disasters that occurred, maria, therma, california wildfires, that that

does not happen again. so their approach is that there needs to be more communication between the local, state levels in how they -- and how they interact with fema, right, because fema is not supposed to be the first responder. they're supposed to assist the governments.te i think going forward, what they want to have is more of a strategy, how to, you know, combat some of the challenges or go over th some of the challenges they faced in 2017 goo. >> we have a minute left. of dealing with these natural disasters, the administrator also found himself relatedews for ethics things, personal travel back to his home in north carolina. how did that all play out for him? >> well, this revolved around the use of the vehicle and his travels-- for back home. make a long story short,

he -- basically, you know, he did, in theat use of this vehicle, and having staff go home with him. >> obviously he's still on the job, so he has the confidence of also thesecurity and white house at this point? >> right. you know, he's not someone who is a political appointee. he actually is someone who has experiences as emergency manager. >> so on the climate change the lastat will be one. what did you learn about how they're incorporating climate planning?o their >> well, he mentioned that they're still trying to navigate kind of combat some of their technical issues and that one of the things that he was mentioning was that, first and foremost, improving infrastructure, not within fema local and state, and he was saying how a there te states that don't have proper infrastructure and they think

that in a natural disaster, going to be prepared, but it's not really tested in order to, youf it stands true know, natural disasters. that fema has a lot to improve but so do local howstate governments and they respond to natural disasters and their communities. of you, thanks to both for asking questions this week. we appreciate >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. c-span was created as a and today wee, continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court,