administrator david paulison who led fema in the wake of hurricane katrina and through the post katrina emergency management reform act. he will discuss the changes he has seen in disasters and provide some thoughts on ways to address the rising costs of disasters. finally, we're joined by chief brian finnessy, who will share his experience in emergency management, specifically the alarming trends in wildfire activity in this country. i ask unanimous consent our witnesses' full statements be included in the record without objection, so ordered. since your written testimony has been made a part of the record the subcommittee would request that you limit your oral testimony to five minutes. administrator fugate, you may proceed. >> thank you, ranking member other members of the committee. in my written statement is talked about some of the to go things we have been working on since the sandy recovery improvement act passed. this committee, you helped us address many issues that it came up repeat lid. first off i have to recognize the fact that you gave us the authority to recognize the tr

my name is david paulison on the senior proper -- partner are desperate to spend seven years in the federal service of a nation i served as a fema administrator from 2005 to 2000 embedded in my aggressive fire rescue firefighter and became achieved the cheaper the miami-dade fire department. as a result i've had -- as to how we as a nation prepared for a deal with disasters. while it seem a tremendous public service awards i've also witnessed unfortunate errors in wasted pack -- taxpayer dollars. in most cases this was the ad wasted taxpayer dollars. in most cases this resulted in mitigation before disaster. not enough resources are being allocated pre-disaster mitigation. i believe this new congress is a golden opportunity to advance a bipartisan natural disaster strategy that will better protect the american people, property and save taxpayer dollars. with the senate and house of representatives working together across party lines now's the time to address the failed status quo with waiting for storms to hit and passing massive appropriations bills. director fugate has done a tremendous j