fema saying, they need to plan for big rate hikes.g about going from paying hundreds of dollars a year to thousands of dollars a year because congress has been having fema pay for itself, never mind fema foots bill for those who never get flood insurance, now sandy victims like scott mcgrath who has done all the right things getting doubly penalized for seeker not happy but she here. what do you think of this? you had flood insurance, extra insurance. >> i had homeowners insurance, and flood chunks, and after thet hurricane they made me get additional insurance, have you home owner insurance does not cover structural damage, you have to get flood insurance, then it covered structural damage but not content, and it has become a big headache for everyone. neil: was that required before sandy? >> depending on the zone you are in. i was in old a zone, now i am in bzone. >> all water susceptible areas ? >> yes. >> you have to pay more. >> if you have a mortgage, now there is a several people like i live in an old community, a lot of people

i have the pleasure of working for administrator fuget in fema headquarters. fema's role is to coordinate response between state and local governments and his focus, his direction to us really comes down it 3 things. he asks us to always plan for the worst case, the maximum of the maximums and it's go to see the department of defense is incorporating this within the catastrophe policy that was spoken about a little earlier. no. 2, he asked us to sppbld and are able to stabilize an incident within 72 hours. his mantra is think big, go big, go fast but not fast. 3, he asks us to do this within a whole community approach, not only it make sure we utilize the whole community in the response because there's much more responders past the federal-state responders. there's the public being responders and there's many others, private industry need to be in that so we try to integrate that into a whole community concept. and also to make sure when we respond we respond to take into account the whole community. not everybody looks like me and you but we need to be able t

but fema has limitations. it just seems fair: the big picture is disaster relief, don't repeat the mistake. they be systematically or structurally. will you look at the broader picture because it's the most frustrating thing to hear. i hate hearing it. >> this drove us crazy in the longer-term rebuilding of katrina and other areas. let me take an example of exactly which are talking about. one of the things congress did was give more authority to see gorgeous rebuild what was there, but the funding being a will necessarily pay for more than the cost to just rebuild. so what we're going to see but fema projects is that cdbg will supplement other from resobg wil supplement other from resources for local governments make a choice, and that we should build back stronger. it's going to cost by many animal pay for itself through mitigation. but we're going to have to plan does sources in ways that the real problem in the past. he gave its authority not to require you to click environmental. makes perfect sense. we'r

first with regard to standard such as fema, as well as the intelligence community, for a project such as this, it's also been my experience that the folks in dhs who establish these standards are not the people who build buildings, they don't generally fund the construction of buildings and in many cases have set standards that render construction of building such a federal essential pass facilities in areas that are unbuildable. i think it's good and fine to start with fema standards, that it doesn't necessarily mean it's a realistic standard. i think it was previously, i'm sure this wasn't the intent but to clarify for the sake of the public of an implication that geography is not a factor in threat assessment. i don't think that's consistent with the current and best thinking in terms of rva's and risk assessment. i'm assuming it was a risk assessment. we don't want to build buildings that are going to create a disproportional impact or collapse. i'm sure it's now and at the end of the process. it's almost a suggestion that up to this point we have been moving on path of designing

should fema? at the end of the day, without any links, they pulled together based on the national strategy built about a year before. the aggregation of the traditional departments. with a layering on a new set of requirements. a new mission. it was done thoughtfully and energetically. done by a handful of people who worked 24/seven. at one point in time, should the fbi the part of homeland security e the president said absolutely not. the unsung heroes around the organization of the department, many of them may be here, those who just labored intensely and intensively in the bowels of the white house for three weeks. when that was all done, they brought it before the president. he approved it. away we went. >> each of these was a suited to their times. a great public face, right after 9/11, a comforting figure. michael, of double harvard. a clerk at the sick green court -- supreme court. i wanted to ask you about the touring of dhs. it took the defense department 50 years, some people will rememb

fema dollarsed the replacing the current location. they might say if you keep rebuilding you're going to have the same problem. fina has limitations. goal is disaster relief. systematically or structurally. would you look at that broader picture? it is the most frustrating thing to hear. crazy in thes longer term rebuilding. many take an example of what you are talking about. one of the things they did was give fema more authority to say do not rebuild exactly what was there. have will notey pay for more than the cost to just rebuild. what we're going to see is that those otherpplement funding sources for local governments are making a choice. is going to cost a little more money. it will pay for itself through mitigation. we're going to have to blend those sources in ways that have been a real problem. you give us authority not require eight duplicates environment. we are not implementing that. those models will be useful for future disasters. we have a template for the way to bring those together in a seamless way. to answer thehave

you've got the fema -- as a country, i think we've turned the country on fema. we're pro fema.re was a time we were saying fema plight not be so necessary. but after katrina and sandy and countless other disasters. >> you're in a situation where global climate change will be exacerbating the problems. if you're taking money out of fema. you go down the list. we have a whole category here. disaster and emergency. it is fema. it's emergency food shelter. it is agricultural disaster relief. it is hazardous substance superfund, the e.p.a. superfund cleanup. look, you know, these things are unpredictable. you never know when disaster is going to hit. if you're unprepared for it, the damage is so much greater. you end up paying for it in the long run and in lives and money and rebuilding. >> peter: what i think is so sick in all of this is there are so many cuts that you guys have listed again at thinkprogress.org that are -- as you mentioned projects and issues that are near and dear to republicans' hearts. you mentioned the $79 million cut from embassy security. $232 million from t

thank you homeowners are fema flood regulations that could cost them hundreds of thousands of dollarsr hurricane katrina devastated the gulf coast in 2005. fema redrew many of the flood maps nationwide taking areas safe from flooding and declaring them vulnerable. now folks trying to rebuild homes after fires and natural disasters are seeing insurance and reconstruction costs go through the roof. adam housley is live with this in los angeles. including country cities you might not think of. sacramento, california under water in many areas. right smack dab in the middle of california's delta. >> >> happy face? >> when brad and jennifer taylor bought their home in 1998 seemed like a good investment and great place to raise a family. >> fema corps of engineers had certified the lives as a hundred year flood protection. we thought it was a safe bet it was a nice neighborhood to move into. >> that all changed last august when the taylors came home to find their house engulfed in flames. thankfully, no one was hurt but the home was destroyed. first thing we felt was relief. we are all here.

should fema? at the end of the day, without any links, they pulled together based on the national strategy built about a year before. the aggregation of the traditional departments. with a layering on a new set of requirements. a new mission. it was done thoughtfully and energetically. done by a handful of people who worked 24/seven. at one point in time, should the fbi the part of homeland security e the president said absolutely not. the unsung heroes around the organization of the department, many of them may be here, those who just labored intensely and intensively in the bowels of the white house for three weeks. when that was all done, they brought it before the president. he approved it. away we went. >> each of these was a suited to their times. a great public face, right after 9/11, a comforting figure. michael, of double harvard. a clerk at the sick green court -- supreme court. i wanted to ask you about the touring of dhs. it took the defense department 50 years, some people will rememb

when katrina hit fema didn't have the necessary contracts in place to get the -- fema was prebared for prepared for hurricane sandy. these are all significant achievement. our witnesses will discuss for us today other examples. but i don't want to whitewash the serious remaining challenges with dhs management that remain on the high-risk list. department still has work to do. we know that. as both the controller general and deputy secretary luke will discuss. as i like to say the improvement on the construction and my colleagues heard me say a million times everything i do i know i can do better. the same is true for all of us and the department. for example, the department still doesn't have a comprehensive financial management system that gives the secretary time visible over the spending of 22 department component. dhs remains the lowest of all major department. i don't think that's going the case for longer. major acquisitions have exceeded cost estimate. the hearing provides a timely opportunity to discuss the possible impact fiscal year 2013, full year contending resolution on th

we would notify other federal agencies, fema, the state department.nd go from there. >> is scenario dependent. it depends on the characterization of the asteroid. sometimes it is just a matter of saying that we now have something else that has been added to the inventory. it is not an earth threatening orbit, and we do that. >> could you talk about whether there is an organized international network or should there be? it is scenario dependent? >> well, it was mentioned at the recent meeting that actually the chair was a nasa scientist. it came that we would get you more information on what they proposed. >> the minor planet center, which i mentioned before, there is a former international entity to which everyone automatically feeds discoveries of objects. there is a network that functions to assemble all of these different telescopes around the world, and even be amateurs nowhere to go with their findings. the plant at center of them goes to the national operation of jpl, which is responsible for working out the trajectory in coordination with these

. >> do you think fema at the very least shoe track what grants are spent? >> yes, i do. >> are you? >> not as well as we would like but we are improving. >> okay. gao found that fewer than 10% of dhs's acquisition programs fully comply with the new acquisition policy. and i know this is a work in progress so one of actually being critical when i make that note. i know that, your intent and goal was to accomplish that. and they also found that one-third of the program that should have had approved acquisition baselines actually do. the baselines actually are probably the most important tools for managing individual programs and conducting congressional oversight. having said that, what steps are you taking to hold components accountable for complying with the dhs acquisition policy? i know you put the policy in. where is the management accountability to major the agencies are holding within the acquisition policy? >> as you noted, we have drawn all of our programs under management directive one of two. they submit each of the programs submit to regular revie

fema is well represented and we have several defense coordinating officers here over the past couple of days. certainly the california national guard is represented heavily here. obviously they are going to be the first guys to respond to a disaster and they have several interesting roles not only from a state perspective but as they get federalized or with the dual status commander managing federal response and federal authorities of military authorities flowing in. and most significantly, we're represented today with the commander of northern command, general jackoby. as you know, defense report to civil authorities is not a primary mission area for the department of defense. we have codified it in policy over the years and certainly things have advanced since 9/11 and hurricane katrina, but there has been a real gap in detailed preplanning for emergency response, particularly as it works its way down the chain into the tactical forces that would respond, most specifically i think those on active duty. this is an area that we don't tend to pay a lot of attention to and very often w

unfortunately, fema has tried to carve out an exception here.g. but we won't allow churches, which often act as community centers because you are religious. that's the only reason we won't let you get in line to have access to emergency relief. >> arthel: >> shannon: it's been several months, how are the houses of worship operating? >> temple in new york was hit bia 15-foot storm surge. all saints church, built in the 1800s by ship builders has a sinkhole for a sanctuary. they having to scramble to repair in the midst of devastation in the entire community. so things are very difficult. >> shannon: i would think a lot of houses of worship are serving as a place where they want to be serving others, people who are suffer -- recovering recovering. it is the gathering place of their community f. they can't be there to help others and hold services, how are they faring? are they having fund-raisers or other ways to try to put the houses back together? >> they are. they are doing a lot of things. and fema says, get your private insurance fraise -- ha

should fema be under the new department?hould sosa -- should secret service be under the new department? without any leaks, they pull together based on a national strategy that had men built a year before. -- had been built a year before. it was done thoughtfully, energetically, by a handful of people who worked 247 four two or three weeks to understand what a long and what did not belong. should the fbi the part of common security? the president said, no, that is in justice, that is where it should stay. the unsung heroes around the organization were those who labored rather intensely and intensively in the bowels of the white house for three weeks. when that was all said and done, it was brought before the president, and he approved it. >> each of these secretaries was suited to their times. tom ridge, a congressman and governor. a comforting figure. michael chertoff, a double harvard, a clerk at the supreme court to justice william brennan. he is now chairman and co- founder of the chertoff group. he dove in and made the

for example, when we were dealing with hurricane sandy last fall, fema, obviously was up there on theground, but cvp was there. the coast guard was there leading search and rescue efforts among other things. we had employees who were out the department over 1400 of them who had taken extra training. come to the new york area, they lived on a merchant marine vessel and literally going apartment to apartment checking on people. making sure things were going right, helping the disaster recovery center and the like. pulling on the sense of mission that our employees join us with and melding them as we do a lot of our different activities has really accelerated. >> secretary, janet napolitano you gave a vehicle, the third annual address on the state of homeland security. the evolution and future of homeland security. you talked about dhs 3.0. what you mean by that? >> we are a rapidly maturing department. ten years is nothing, really, in the history of particularly large complicated government institutions. this is the most significant reorganization in the federal government. since the cr

can you talk more about how fema is approaching this role?l they take into account geographsics and demographics in the area? >> as we fema has a wide range of responsibilities to respond to different emergencies and disasters. we're in the process, as i mentioned, conducting exercises of various kinds in which that fema is a participant and thinking about and trying to work out the detailings of the response strategies. as your question points out, those impacts could be different. if a large asteroid strikes the ocean the impact will come as a tsunami. that is something that fema must also recognize that tsunamis can occur in other ways. urbantrike occurs over an area it can cause a massive earthquake, which is another event that fema is able to respond. these are big challenges. i will not minimize the difficulty of responding adequately if an asteroid strike should occur in the size range that we need to be particularly worried about. >> what efforts are being made o engage the existing response infrastructure? >> we're exercising those w

. >> so from a perspective of fema, we not only have a defense officer appointed by dod embedded with us during a disaster but we actually practice and have communications interoperatability over our systems to be sure we can communicate with each other on similar platforms and also support state and local platforms, whether it was katrina or other events we've actually been able to bring in national guard platforms to provide 911 systems for cities that have lost those systems. we recently in the joplin tornados and also tuscaloosa tornados we brought in dod equipment to replace what was destroyed. from the fire side i know there's a lot of things you are doing to work around the interoperatability issues with regard to communications between fire and dod and maybe if ray or anybody else wants to speak to that. >> our communications challenges still exist. we have excellent telecom communications, we have a layered effect of our radio systems. we have mobile command posts that we can exercise. so we're prepared for power outages, reduction of telecoms, we have a layered effect for ou

are you going to call fema, what are you going to do? if there was ever a day when i just wanted to throw my hands up and say, it hundred $30 a month is just not worth it. dollars a month was just not worth it. myt would have been it. husband was in the basement shoveling, so is everybody else. the next morning after the andd i got up, went over 5000 people showed up to much shoveling mud out of basement. when they asked me that question, what are you going to do? is fema going to come help yucca i said, we are going to have this cleaned up before washington realizes we are on the map. [applause] , weugh volunteer efforts were able to clean up the basement in three days. our ownable, through efforts, fundraising help people repair. hard work, education, thrift, savings will take us far beyond what any government program can ever promise. volunteer work. we are.who that is what we need to remind people how we are going to get back on our feet. thank you so much. i really appreciate it. , don'tthere, work hard leave me out there alone. [la

martha: a legal nightmare as fema is redrawing their flood maps.oid the sort of devastation caused by hurricane katrina but it is already creating a lot of trouble for families trying to rebuild their homes after the disasters. adam housley is live on the story for us from los angeles. good morning, adam. >> reporter: martha, this is happening all across the country as fema uses new regulations to redraw communities as flood hazard areas. not just in the south or places you might think of flooding. it is in places like sacramento, california, in the middle of a san joaquin delta. we met one family who is homeless due to the regulations. >> happy face? >> reporter: when brad and jennifer taylor bought their sacramento home in 1998. it seemed like a good investment and a great place to raise a family. >> fema and corps of engineers just certified the levees as 100 year flood protection. so we, thought that it was a safe bet. it was a nice neighborhood to move into. >> reporter: but that all changed last august when the taylors came home to find their

is fema going to come help yucca -- come to help? i said, we are going to have this cleaned up before washington realizes we are on the map. [applause] through volunteer efforts, we were able to clean up the basement in three days. we were able, through our own efforts, fundraising help people repair. hard work, education, thrift, savings will take us far beyond what any government program can ever promise. following -- volunteer work. that is who we are. that is what we need to remind people how we are going to get back on our feet. thank you so much. i really appreciate it. go out there, work hard, don't leave me out there alone. [laughter] [applause] thank you. >> a discussion about how editorial cartoonists portrayed the effort to pass a universal health care law. the wiggly addresses by president obama and nebraska congressman lee terry. -- weekly addresses by president obama and nebraska congressman lee terry. stan "washington journal," colander and peter morsi -- morici discuss the prospects of a budget agreement. and the budg

fema is not going to do that for you. and that was just a spontaneous effort. now it has expanded around the world. this came out of burning man, this wild, crazy party. >> let us start over here with a question. >> i would like to ask a question about dpw. the people that build infrastructure. i want to know why they do not get workers' comp when they are injured. >> of course they do. who told you they did not? >> my friends who work for dpw. they did not have insurance. >> we have workers' comp. i assure you, they are wrong. once in awhile, an employer will claim workers, for something that did not happen on the job. there have been a couple of incidents like that. there could have been discontent over that. of course we have workers caught. ask them again. when did they work for dpw? >> one of them just tweeted me the question. >> my name is anne marie. i represent in north of market community benefit district, the tenderloin. we are very excited to have your company coming in. just talking about the burning man twist, that is an interesting phrase. this ma

. >> do you get funding from a fema grant? is that what's going away?> yeah, we secured a grant this month. projected layoffs for budgets were due to take effect in may. >> what is the city doing to increase your funding? >> it's a problem. they may not have adequate funding, obviously not enough if they want to lay off 22. >> do you think the public safety is at risk because of the situation you are put in? >> this major cut not only is the public at risk, but my fellow firefighters are at risk. ♪ >>> have you seen the new trailer for the new movie, "less miserable"? huge hit. >> not yet. >> we are not talking "les right? >> no, "less miserable." it's a parody video of les mis put out by dennis herrara. ♪ they seven cut the girl's hair. they made the parody to alert the public they reached a settlement with check and go and some may be entitled to a refund. they put it side by side, their version of "less miserable" next to "les mis" and they do their best to match the scene in the trailer, all to get people to go online and go to caloanrefu caloanrefu

i see people talking about fema. i read about president bush and his budget cuts.es going. >> and in prison, he's discovered a captive audience for his brand of political punditry. >> i have a subscription to "usa today" and i have a line. i let everybody read it. i write little comments. you'd be surprised, we discuss things in here. everything in prison is not just violence or gangs. we discuss issues. people are surprised the conversations we have in here, you know what i'm saying? >> he tried out some spin in response to an unexpected line of questioning from our producer on the pin-ups decorating his cell. >> are these all your girlfriends? >> in another lifetime. most of them come out of "xxl" magazine. minority based magazines. kind of like "maxim." but sided toward the hip hop minority community. get tired of looking at gray walls all day. they're not nude, they're all clothed, albeit scantily. >> they're very artistic, marcus. it's nice you represent minorities, but it's not so nice about women. not so nice about women. >> it's a bit misogynist. i'm going

fema was the lead agency. obviously we stood up field offices to do different kinds of things and it was basically the ground operation. the other areas were more gathering of piece parts and those kinds of things. the fbi played a huge role in us, epa played a huge role. the u.s. force reservist, if it weren't for them, we never could have searched the areas that we did. and then the texas folks as well or just tremendous. i can't tell you enough about the job that everybody in the state of texas did for us. not only for us in our programs, but for us personally to bring comfort to us as we experienced some every difficult situations. difficulties early on, i had three different fema guys come up to me in the first eight hours and say that i am in charge. i said, that is great, i appreciate that, but were you going to do and they really didn't know. so i said, why don't you let nasa take the lead and we will know what this vehicle is made of. we have a lot of folks we can get on the ground quickly and we woul

under the rules of stafford act under fema, fema was only able to reimburse impacted transit agencies to what i sometimes cynically refer to it as returning the transit assets to the decrepit condition they were in the day before the disaster. which is, actually, how the program worked. i mean, we literally had some experiences post-katrina in which the new orleans transit provider was told, well, the bus that got floodedded and destroyed was eight years old, you need to go out on the market and purchase an 8-year-old bus. that doesn't serve the public very well, it's not a good investment for the taxpayer, it doesn't really meet our fundamental goal to provide finish. >> not to mention the fact it's very difficult to explain to a tv reporter. [laughter] >> oh, exactly. so, you know, you add owl those thing -- add all those things together, our new program will not only allow us to make investments to return the transit assets to the condition we all want them to be, but it will also allow us to make investments to mitigate the likelihood of a recurrence of the disaster. so the realit

so for example, when we were dealing with hurricane sandy last fall, fema was up there on the ground,the cdp was fair. the coast guard says they are leading search and rescue efforts among other things. we had employees throughout the department, over 1400 had taken some extra training come to the new york area. they lived on a merchant during vessel and literally were going apart the two apartment, checking on people, making sure things are going right. so pulling on that sense of mission that our employees join us for an melding them as we do a lot of our different dvds has really accelerated. >> secretary napolitano, a week ago he gave her third annual address on the state of homeland security the evolution and future be talked about dhs to play now. what do you mean by that? >> we are rapidly maturing the part. 10 years is nothing in the history of large complicated government institutions. this is the most significant reorganization of the federal government since the creation of dod really. 3.0 is that we can take what we've learned, take some of the evolving technology that has

the first is that we are following a fema dhs for the assessment of what are called design basis for both natural and potential man-made threats that could impact the transit center. so we are following a federally established set of guidelines. the second component there is that it is from our assessment is kind of the standard of practice, the standard of care for a facility of our nature. and then the third component that you touched upon from a reliability perspective, is that through this prospect and the document of this process, we do intend to apply for a safety act certification, the safety act was passed in 2002 and it's a federal program again to evaluate the design of systems and facilities to document the kind of again the standard of care being taken in their design from a threat perspective and make recommendations for the liability and insurance that those facilities should carry after certifying that adequate care has been taken in the design and establishing the limits of liability, the safety act caps the liability of the agency in the event of an incident to those

that is from fema. earthquake damage and that is something very important in the bay area. you want to make sure what your homeowners covers. find out what policies complement each other. >> and i was thinking about the horrible situation in san bruno. how could that be covered by insurance. >> it's one of those things that insurers will take a look at typical risk do. all the math and they come up what is and isn't covered. an explosion is covered. you have pg&e who is responsible for that whole process going through and finding where the money is going to come to rebuild those homes. >> cheryl: renters, there are millions of renters and not that many people think to get renters insurance? >> they assume, i don't have that much. i don't need insurance. when you start adding up all your contents, your belongings you realize how much money is in those contents. so one of the things you want to do is look into renter's insurance, you are looking at about $12 a mow for $30,000 policy. that covers the conte

meeting which we will not go into because of purposes of time it is the right thing to do and based on fema guidelines and we were at a point in time where we did the first rva analysis where we were in the schematic phase and the design was not mature enough when it got to that point, we did the update again with urs and the other teams that were mentioned. it just so happens that the work we did, allows us to apply for safety acts and security designation and we will most likely get it, but we did not do the work to obtain the certification or designation. we don't have to do it but it would be wise to do it from a liability standpoint and we went into the legal reasons last time, but i did want to give you that understanding. i don't know, if you want to add to that? >> maria is right, you do that to liability and established by the department of homeland security and you did go over it last time and i saw your presentation last time. having achieved and won the certification from dhs, he used the dhs methodology from science and technology who award the safety act certification and we u