view of government. we are funded by these companies and more. including spotlight. >> the greatest town on earth is the place you call home. at lights, it is our home too. that is why spark lights is working to keep you connected. we are doing our part so it is easier to do yours. >> sparklight support c-span along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. professor a.r. siders is with us, an assistant professor at the university of delaware disaster research center to talk about the federal disaster response and the cost. professor, welcome to " washington journal." tell us about the university center, what is your

mission? guest: this is the oldest center focused on federal disaster, so our mission is to produce research that looks at how to manage disasters, the recovery, the risk reduction and how people experience disasters. host: you had a recent piece looking back at 2020. we will get to hurricane ida soon enough, but the conversation was, after a record $22 billion of disasters in 2020, it is time to overhaul u.s. disaster policy and here is how. what -- with that figure, what made you say it is time to revise a u.s. policy? are we spending too much or spending it in the wrong places? guest: the challenges we are seeing so many disasters occur, one right after another, and we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars, and we do not have good evidence to say that the money is helping, that

we are reducing risk. the number of disasters is growing, the cost is growing, the government accountability office came out with a report that showed homes were over and over again fighting, and that number has grown. so the question is, are we doing any good? host: in that regard, how much of that responsibility is on the federal government and live with that move into those more vulnerable areas for hurricanes or for fires, things like that? guest: the federal government plays a primary role in lending the recovery, but is local and state governments who have authority over deciding where a new development occurs and the building codes, zoning, those are handled at the state and local level. that is one reason why we see so much variety. some communities are very good, they have high standards for

building codes, safety standards, zoning and are carefully about where to not build, so housing is not exposed to hazards. and other communities where they do not have zoning, so we see new development occurring in areas where we know that these homes will be exposed to wildfires or other disasters. host: what is the law that allows or provides that the federal government to respond to disasters, and give us the range of disasters the government responds to. guest: the stafford act is the main legislation that authorizes u.s. government to respond to major disasters. it covers a variety of disasters, from hurricanes, floods, wildfires, drought. one challenge of the act, especially in light of climate change, is now we have new types of disasters the act was not designed to deal with. late coastal erosion, new

flooding, things not in the original set of disasters that were contemplated. it does give broad authority, especially to fema, but other agencies to deal with disasters. but climate change, like with everything it is challenging. host: how much does political pressure play in terms of getting the government to respond to disasters? guest: we have research looking at this. federal aid becomes available primarily after there is a presidential declaration of a disaster. first, there must be a decision at the state level, this is a state level disaster, then a presidential declaration. this can be politicized. it can be politicized both by the party of the president and the governor or the city being affected, but it can also be politicized in terms of thinking about disasters in terms of property damage. we think about, has this become a disaster primarily by the number of buildings destroyed

rather than the people affected. host: our guest is professor a.r. siders from the university of delaware disaster research center. here are the lines. in the eastern and central time zones, 202-748-8000. it mountain and pacific, 202-748-8001. if you have been affected by hurricane ida in any way, because last night we know that new york city was flooded with record rainfall, that line is 202-748-8002, and we look forward to hearing from you. professor, back to your piece in the conversation. we want to show a map included in that piece of the disasters in 2020 that the federal government responded to. the western wildfires, the drought from the central plains, and numerous hurricanes along the gulf coast and along the east coast, including hurricane

isaac, which struck south carolina. in that piece, you write -- this is where you are calling for revisiting the federal recovery aid -- "when infrastructure is damaged, the federal government will pay for 75% of the cost if they damage exceeds a certain threshold. the idea is for federal systems to kick in when state governments are overwhelmed, however, that threshold is only $1 million, plus one dollar 55 -- plus $1.55 per person." is that stipulated in the law? guest: the threshold can be changed by the federal emergency management agency, by fema. they have a proposal right now to try to increase that threshold, because they recognize that it does not account for the increased cost of living and the increased cost

of expense in the disasters people are experiencing. it is calculated while it is trying to approximate at what point state and local resources are overwhelmed. the idea is that local authorities should be the first responders and of the federal government should be there to help when those areas are overwhelmed. how do we try to understand when a state is truly overwhelmed? that is a difficult thing to put a dollar value on, but fema has to try. host: your research center is the oldest in the country looking at disasters, when did the u.s. government first become involved? what is the first instance of the u.s. government responding to a regional or state disaster? guest: there are isolated incidents going back through the 1800s, but 1950 was one of the first times the u.s. passed a law that said the federal government would respond to disasters in a systematic way, so relatively recently, within

the memory or lifespan of some people living today, that is when the federal government took this over. and since 1950, we have seen more of a shift toward federal responsibility for disasters rather than state and local. host: i want to ask about the use of the national flood insurance program, the program that provides primary flood insurance, administered by fema. 5 million-dollar policies providing $1.3 trillion in coverage as of october of last year. in your piece, or otherwise, how do you think the national flood insurance program is performing or does it need to be changed? guest: the program needs to be reformed. and this has been known for quite a while. the program is reauthorized periodically to make sure it is working, and at last expired in 2017. and congress knows it is broken and they need to make reforms.

so since 2017, they have reauthorized it 16 times, always with short reauthorizations. the next one expires in september, so next month we will see more discussion on how it should be reformed. the major attention, when we think about reforming the program, is on the one hand we want to increase the cost of policies to reflect the amount of risk people actually experience in these flood prone areas, but we do not want to price out low income neighborhoods from being able to live in places where maybe that is the only affordable housing. so trying to reconcile that tension is what is making it difficult to reform the program. host: we have a line for those impacted by hurricane ida, 202-748-8003. the latest update, at least eight dead as ida swamps new york. flash flooding led to at least

eight deaths and disruptive transit along the region. let's get to a call on the federal money spent and federal disaster response. first, glenn. go ahead. caller: good morning. i wonder if you did studies on the orville dam and the paradise fire, while the dam was still being rebuilt. and it was caused by edison. and the dam was caused by neglect from our democratic governor. our governor, gavin newsom, was meeting with lobbyists at the french lobby, and they got $23 billion in aid. and they gave shares to pg&e, but they have not made the people whole.

they haven't paid the people for the forests burned down. and we have more fires right now caused by neglect and pg&e, and they have been bailed out by our governor. host: professor? guest: the challenge you are talking about with the dam in particular is a major challenge. infrastructure across the u.s. is aging. when we look at levees, the average age of the levees is 50 years old in the united states. many were built to an older standard. some are being maintained, others not. so sometimes people who lived behind infrastructure they think is protecting them, they are not a safe as they think they are. they think it will cost $21 billion just to repair levees in the high risk category. and when you look at wildfires, there are so many points you raised, but it is a major challenge right now.

it is a major challenge because many are started by human activity, about 85% to 90% are started by people, whether it is pg&e or a campfire, so it is a challenge to try to prevent those in the first place by understanding what systems are malfunctioning that would cause those to start. host: in texas, emma says -- well, we lost emma. bob in massachusetts. caller: good morning. i would like to know if this bill is over $20 billion in 2020, and katrina cost whatever it cost, isn't inflation in there? can you actually say that we are doing more damage or this or that because it seems like everybody is making more. we have forest fires because

they are not taking care of the land. the co2 levels are higher. and in the dinosaur's time they were 10 timess highe -- times higher. and all this climate change stuff comes from 1950. so let me know what the prices are, how it changes. host: how do you factor climate change into your work? guest: climate change is at the core of my work. to the point on cost, when we talk about the cost those are calculated by noaa and they do use an adjusted price, so 2017 was actually the most expensive year, $334 billion from major disasters. climate change is making things worse. it's not the only factor. where we develop new infrastructure also plays a

role. and we can see the same thing with hurricanes and storms. anybody with a humid summer knows that hot moisture carries more moisture, and that will carry more water, release it more quickly, so we will have more rainfall and stronger storms. when we think about disaster response, my work is how do we think about paying for the last disaster, but also how they will change in the future and how we need to adapt more long-term to prepare for a future that will not look like the past. host: you have been an advocate for a policy of managed retreat, explain that. guest: it is the idea that in some places we have buildings in areas that are extremely high risk, and at some point it makes more sense not to have them there. so let's remove the buildings from places that are extremely high risk. for example, homes built in the

floodway, basically in the river perhaps because the river has changed course, or upstream has changed the way the river flows. those homes are dangerous to live in. so the federal government has had a program since 1989, in order to purchase flood prone homes from homeowners who no longer want to experience floods, we sell them to the local government using federal funds. and the local government demolishes or relocates the house and makes the land open space. i'm an advocate for this because there are so many people who are trapped. we see this in hurricane ida, but with other storms over uc stories from people who say i do not want to deal with this anymore, but i do not to sell my house to another family who will experience this all over again. one of the best things to do is take the house off the market, so nobody lives in a place that is that unsafe. host: these are some things that

we heard from the former fema director yesterday, he was our guest yesterday and he talked about some of the decisions that people should make in terms of deciding where to build, if to build come in risky locations. [video clip] >> in louisiana, the governor had already defined there may be parts of the coastal areas where they need to relocate or they may not be able to rebuild. it's not as simple as, you should never rebuild in these areas. because of the oil industry, shipping, the seafood industry -- these are areas we cannot abandon, but we need to make decisions about how we rebuild, where we should rebuild, and make sure we are building it for future impacts, not just building it back the way it was. host: would you agree? guest: absolutely. there has been a major shift in the way that countries like the u.s. and others are responding

to disasters. we cannot build back exactly what was there before the disaster, because it sets us up to experience the same disaster over again. we need people to build back better, we have to do something different. we will experience more hazards and we need to do things differently in order to be safer. some of that will involve some areas where we can say, but a seawall around that, or we can elevate a home if you are willing to live in an elevated house, or we may relocate, if you are willing to relocate this neighborhood or home somewhere else that's safer. all of those options will have to be used. host: tony texted us on this, but i suspect a number of people are in a similar situation. "i have a house outside of the

floodplain, close enough if insurance was cheap i would buy it. it is so costly i do not purchase it. how does that help the program if i opt out?" guest: this is a challenge. flood insurance is sometimes not available to people, so the fact it is even available to tony is a good sign, that means your community is trying to do something to address flooding. but it can be expensive. if the program is reformed, it could become even more expensive. this goes back to the challenge of how we make flood insurance affordable, and on the others if we make it to affordable people will not have that market signal about the risk they are facing when they live in flood prone areas. a tension between wanting to support the bolivian where they are and providing a signal. host: edward in ohio. good morning. you are on the air.

caller: how are you? host: fine, thanks. caller: here is the thing i do not understand. here we are quivering over money during the middle of a national emergency. the thing is, we need to do what is right. we need to build back better, but we need to make sure that everybody is secure. we need to do it the right way. as you've said before, we can't build it back the way it was because evidently that did not work. we need to make it better, we need to make it flood proof. as far as the cost of flood insurance, isn't it legalizing companies to gouge you anyway they can, because everybody should be able to afford it. it does not matter what it is, it should be covered.

you should have that peace of mind that you are covered through your insurance company. host: ok, any thoughts? guest: this is a great point to make, that flood insurance is rarely run through a flood insurance company. most often flood insurance is provided by the federal government, run through the national flood insurance program, and it is exactly for this reason. in the 1960's, the companies said we cannot make money because it is so exposed, and they started withdrawing policy. the federal government said, we will offer flood insurance at a reduced rate so everyone can afford it. one challenge is over the last 60 years, we have seen offering flood insurance at low prices might give people some peace of mind, but it might give them too much peace of mind. it might make them feel safe in a not safe place. we want people to recognize that

may be where you are living is not safe, so you take action like elevate your home. but we need to take more action. we have a similar pattern out west with wildfires. insurance companies are saying, we will stop offering insurance for wildfire prone homes, and the government saying, hold on, insurance needs to be available. we will have that same balancing act, wanting to make it available but not giving people incentive to the exposed to risk. so this is one of the challenges with flood insurance. host: we have not talked about major earthquakes in this country for some time, but what about earthquake insurance? has that go into expensive for people who live in fault line areas? guest: most of the discussion is around raising awareness. san francisco had a raising awareness campaign where they tried to grade and might -- make

people aware, are you living in a rental property that has been built to earthquake standards? trying to raise awareness about that. even before insurance, do you know how risky the building you are living in is. maybe it was built last year, or maybe it was built 30 years ago and not built to building codes. same thing with floods, how do we raise awareness about risk exposure, so people can make decisions. host: on the building codes, earthquake, floods, are they mandated by the states? guest: yes, they are often done at the state level, sometimes at the county level, and sometimes at the town level. so there could be a whole variety. host: paul in new bedford, massachusetts. caller: hi. i was on a planning board a number of years ago and learned about this kind of dilemma

between the verticality of the way the zoning laws worked. and one of the big challenges i thought was the kind of plan. the planning for it is more or less a rubberstamp for existing codes and laws, but cannot really steer the operations towards better solutions. you can nudge them around, but the legal questions were, for example, one question i would have was how constitutional laws per state -- you touched on this earlier -- how that can interfere with the way that we plan. there's so many personal liberty issues, lawyers get involved, and it gets complicated quickly. one example that comes up is the land in flood areas, how can

we preserve arable lands for food supply, let's say, instead of it being sold off to 50 lots of housing? i will leave it at that. maybe you can touch on some of these things, but it is a real dilemma. host: we will get a response. guest: it is a major challenge. so, with planning boards, some have a lot of legal authority and others don't. legally, when we talk about this there's two different types of states, some provide towns with legal authority, so those planning boards can be strong. where those communities have a lot of power. other states say the state will maintain most of the power and local governments do not have control. i'm thinking about a town in nebraska that wanted to relocate their entire town, they wanted to move away from the river in order to be safe and estate government said, you cannot

legally do that because the state has the authority, not the town. so there was a divide over who has that authority and it really depends state-by-state. and often times, planning boards can be given more legal tools. right now, we're looking at zoning laws that can be used to protected wetlands, open-space or arable land for agriculture. all those laws that help zoning boards defendant that open-space can also help to guide development towards areas less risky. host: a follow-up to our flood insurance conversation, jennifer sends us this, "i'm an insurance agent you we sell private flood insurance. it is a new thing. it is pretty affordable, it's just not backed by the government." guest: it is great that private insurance companies are getting involved. thank you for pointing that out, because i do not want people to

think they do not offer this, but many homeowners assume that their homeowners insurance will cover floods when it does not. it often has to be a separate policy. so if you are counting on home insurance to cover flood damage, make sure that you have a dedicated flood policy from the federal government or a private insurer. host: michael morris in illinois, who has been impacted by the hurricane. caller: i have a piece of property down there that, i guess it is underwater. i do not know, i cannot get there to look at it. here's my question for the professor. we cannot even get people to wear masks with covid because they do not believe in the science. the science tells us there are areas that will probably flood because they are low. there's areas that will be

subject to wildfires and so forth. i do not think you are going to get people to cooperate. wouldn't it be better to eliminate totally these flood protection and fire protection programs? and if people want to build in these areas, go ahead, but when you are wiped out do not come to the rest of us looking for money, because i am in a blue state that sends more dollars to washington than we get back. and the republicans are always telling us, oh, we do not want to be giving money to these blue states that have these pension problems. well, louisiana is not very blue. host: tell us about your property. is it in louisiana? caller: an uncle of mine used to go hunting down there, so it is rural. and i would never have thought

of building anything. we have had shacks on it over the years, just to sleep for a night or two while out hunting. host: professor, go ahead. guest: i agree, it sounds tempting to say let's let the property owners do whatever they want and then deal with the consequences. the challenge is so many people live on risk prone property, not because they chose to or they wanted to be exposed to risk, it is because it is the only place at that their ancestors were allowed to build. some people are living there because it is the only place they can afford. 10% of affordable housing in the u.s. is located inside the floodplain. sometimes it is communities where their job is and it may need to be close. it is tempting to say, these people should deal with the consequences, but that is often

not the case. they are not making the choice to be exposed. we need to change the systems that have exposed these people to the risk. and we need to deal differently with new developments being built now that we understand risk exposures than those employees 50 years ago, when the flood risks and climate change were not as apparent. host: this is philip in orlando. caller: good morning to both of you. the guest, to me, is a breath of fresh air in terms of providing valuable information regarding the times we are living in. one point i want to make, then i want to make a statement. i just feel like we are not really adequately looking at the reality as a group of citizens on this planet. who are working together to try to control what is going on with

the changes happening. it is frightening to think -- i was in florida after watching north carolina, the storm that moved up the coast, the latest one, ida -- what can happen to this state. people are in denial about everything here, the masks, everything. just the climate change. when rick scott was governor, there was a denial by the government to allow people to talk about climate change as if it didn't exist. the former president was talking about denying climate change then, like it happens naturally. in your mind, as a young woman, very intelligent, what do you think is going to be the outcome of citizens here on this planet in the near future? i give it five months to five

years if we do not get it together. guest: i am not quite that pessimistic, but it is a major challenge, educating people about climate change and having these conversations. they are difficult. and partly because our society so divided right now. we cannot have a conversation about things that appear to be fact because we no longer believe in facts. we think that there are alternate facts now, or rake fact -- fke fact -- fake facts. it is a challenge when we cannot get people to agree on basic facts, light, how do you prepare for worst storms if you have to start establishing that they are getting worse. it is a challenge. but over the course of history science wins out, the truth wins out. the challenge is not, are we going to do with climate change? the question is will be deal with it quickly enough to prevent the massive suffering of that will occur every time we do not prepare for one of these disasters.

that is the real concern. host: a headline says 2 million in louisiana without power. how has the utility industry, the energy industry, responded in recent years in terms of working to harden their infrastructure to protect against storms such as ida? guest: utility companies are preparing for climate change, they are trying to prepare for storms. i was in new york during hurricane sandy and immediately afterwards working with edison on how to try to prevent another sandy from knocking out power. the companies are aware of this. one of the challenges they face is trying to figure out how much to spend, because often the cost is passed on to the ratepayers and they do not want an increased electrical bill, but they want the company to protect their infrastructure. how did they balance the need to protect infrastructure with where does that money come from

and not wanting to impose the cost on users. that is likely to be a slow transition because you do not want to increase the rates quickly too high, you want to do it slowly, piecemeal it over time in order to prevent overpricing electricity for users. host: back to your piece, the chart tells the story. billion-dollar disasters. . "over the past few decades, costs have exceeded $1 billion each

>> we had flash flood warning's and tornado warnings going off. my home in my office or unscathed except for some road flooding. but others had it much worse. >> i'd like her to stay on the line and answer my question. i'm calling in reference, four or five calls ago, you talked about the temperance dam. you talked about the money. his temperance dam built?

>> i haven't been following it specifically. >> then why did you comment on it? but we funded it for over 15 or 20 years now to stop all the wildfires and to keep some of our water. but you mentioned it, and you didn't even say, well that dam is built. >> let's get our guest response. thanks for the call. federal agencies often take years to allocate the money and

spend the money that has been allocated after a major disaster. the fact that, as you are saying, a dam has had money allocated and has not been built is unfortunately not surprising. although i don't know the details about that specifically, it resonates with what we see around the country. >> good morning, thank you. in the discussion about the cost of losses to public infrastructure, private property , increasing because of climate change, we already have a debt crisis that is substantial from covid related problems. in the course of that, the government under some administrations has cut taxes on the income of the wealthy and on

states of the wealthy, whatever industries they are involved in. there has been very little public discussion probably because of the intimidation factor of politicians who don't want to lose donations, media who don't want to lose ads. i'm talking about addressing the need of placing these costs more at their source with people who have caused the climate problem and have all the skated and confuse the public about it. even the last few years without talking about office gating climate science per se, we've had people in the government who actively try to cloud the idea of science in general, the idea of following evidence as opposed to fantasy, and i believe some of these people actually financed by carbon interests who want to create a climate where the public does not trust the evidence based process. and i am wondering how we will

get this discussion courageously placed in the area where it needs to be to draw the resources from people who have been enriched by causing the climate problem, and they should be taxed not only on current income, but for the damage they have caused and on assets they have been unjustly enriched by while deceiving the public. host: thank you, alan. guest: that is a great point, who is going to pay for these things? how do we distribute the costs? it is a major challenge in the united states. if you think is a challenges for the u.s., for the united nations, the conference of parties they talked about which country should pay, where the money should come from to deal with the effects of climate change around the globe. so these conversations are really difficult. and you raise an excellent point about we will need political

courage in order to have those difficult conversations. host: i want to ask about water. a front page story recently from the wall street journal, "severe drought has there and do public supply in the west. the water elevation at hoover dam is at its lowest since late we need -- lake mead was first filled. the opposite problem is happening in the east with too much water, but not enough drinking water." the new york times on their front page, "in drenched louisiana, a survival level and the hunt for drinking water." on the longer drought going on in the u.s. west, is this a slow rolling disaster for the u.s.? guest: it absolutely is. just, as you mentioned and speaking about the navy, an admiral used to say that climate change was all about the water, it is too much, it is too little, in the wrong place at the wrong time. so the fact we see major flooding and drought is what we

expect from climate variability. the drought is an unfolding disaster and it will be a major challenge because so many legal, social and infrastructure systems are built up on the assumption that there will be a certain amount of water in certain places at certain times, and that is no longer true. when we think about the ripple effects, so when the water level is low, can we produce power, do we have enough water to deal with wildfires? some areas have reservoirs so low that the firefighters cannot get water out to fight the wildfires. the challenges have compounding effects and they will have consequences for agriculture, for towns that are trying to get drinking water in water for recreation. and the effects will continue. so trying to get people to treat it as a disaster, the same way that we treat a disaster like ida, is incredibly difficult because it is so slow and it

lasts for so long. it can be challenging to have that same motivation to act. host: let's hear from rick in idaho. go ahead. caller: good morning, c-span, dr. siders. i'm a retired marine. i have something that will help. it's a report from 2019, and when you open it up it is 33 pages. when you look at 28-30, you will see 1946 to 2017, the american taxpayer dollars go out and we get nothing in return. 1980, mount saint helens erupted and we sent out aid. not my job america. the earthquake in the bay area, we put out aid. what did the world do for us? here is the punchline.

hurricane katrina, 2005, we put out $200 billion, $35 billion in foreign aid, and only one country stepped up to the plate and offered help. it was a noble gesture from japan. and president bush said thank you for the offer, but no thanks. what did the world do? not my job. i want my federal dollars to go to your programs, fema, funding levees and dams to support america first and all of the victims from ida. i want my federal dollars to go to you. host: let's hear some final thoughts from the professor. guest: thank you for those thoughts, i am glad that you want funding to go to disaster programs. and obviously i think that is a great idea. in terms of foreign aid, when i was working for the navy i was working on their foreign investment programs, to build

relations that we need in order to have defense mechanisms in those countries. so there is multiple roles there, but that does segue into the next section of the program. our disaster system is doing the best it can right now, but it is dealing with laws and infrastructure that are outdated and we need massive change in order to deal with both the disasters we are seeing now and the long-term changes we will see due the climate change. host: it is the university of delaware disaster research center, and the assistant professor a.r. siders with us this morning. thanks so much. andrew is a research fellow with the program on extremism, joining us to talk about potential terror threats out of afghanistan since the u.s. withdrawal. welcome to washington journal. let's start off with the question of who is this group that we