mrs. lowey: thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank you for your presentation. you seem so well informed. we are very honored to have a person of your caliber tarik on this responsibility. the challenges are just incredible. and i know we discussed puerto rico. so i won't bring that up today. but i hope you really stay on it because the tragedy was overwhelming. when you're up in the helicopter and you see all the homes without roofs and the electric grid and the water and the food and the jobs, so thank you for your leadership and i really hope you stay on it. don't forget the st. john's as well. mr. long: thank you. mrs. lowey: thank you very much. mr. carter: mr. taylor. mr. taylor: thank you, mr. chairman. mr. brock, appreciate he and your service and please to give your best to everybody under you. i know they have a very challenging environment as so do you. lots of challenges. i'm very happy to hear some of your comments about streamlining the agency and also i do want to touch on puerto rico just briefly. i was

mrs. lowey: mr. speaker, our nation still grieves the loss of a great new yorker, louise slaughter. i'll never forget when louise and i still just junior congress women at the time charged up the steps of the u.s. senate to demand that anita hill be allowed to testify against clarence thomas. louise never lost that fighting spirit. fearlessness and commitment to justice, equality, and women's rights. she broke barriers, becoming the first woman to chair the house rules committee and set a strong example of public service and principled leadership as dean of the new york congressional delegation. as a leading champion of women's empowerment, she proudly represented seneca falls, the site of the first women's rights convention. it was an honor to charge alongside louise up the steps of the senate that fall day years ago and during the many battles we fought together for america's health care, women's rights, opportunity for working men and women and so much more. . new york, the congress and our country have suffered an immeasurable loss. i do pray that congresswoman slaughter's famil

i work closely with mr. lowey from new york who i assume will join us shortly. and look forward to getting the appropriations through. we did your bill july of last year and packaged up in september and then a huge hiatus we like to blame it on the other body. we have come together and hopefully we gave you the resources you need. mr. attorney general, i'm pleased sitting here this morning as the 84th attorney general representing the people of the united states. it's your responsibility as our nation's chief law enforcement officer to enforce the laws and defend the united states against all threats foreign and domestic ensuring a fair and impartial administration of justice for all americans. i'm proud of the work of your department's law enforcement agencies. the chairman has invoked including the fbi, the god work of the dea, the u.s. marshall service and others. i've gotten to know and respect those in the new york and new jersey region and they do remarkable things sometimes under the radar screen and they do it well. spm we are usually proud of their prof

mrs. lowey: mr. speaker, our nation still grieves the loss of a great new yorker, louise slaughter. i'll never forget when louise and i still just junior congress women at the time charged up the steps of the u.s. senate to demand that anita hill be allowed to testify against clarence thomas. louise never lost that fighting spirit. fearlessness and commitment to justice, equality, and women's rights. she broke barriers, becoming the first woman to chair the house rules committee and set a strong example of public service and principled leadership as dean of the new york congressional delegation. as a leading champion of women's empowerment, she proudly represented seneca falls, the site of the first women's rights convention. it was an honor to charge alongside louise up the steps of the senate that fall day years ago and during the many battles we fought together for america's health care, women's rights, opportunity for working men and women and so much more. . new york, the congress and our country have suffered an immeasurable loss. i do pray that congresswoman slaughter's famil

lowey, the ranking member of the committee. any comments you wish to make? >> thank you very much mr. chairman and i appreciate you having this hearing and thank you ranking member roybal allard for holding the hearing and administrator long. you last testified before the subcommittee last november on the hurricane supplemental request. thank you for the hard work assisting the states and u.s. territories, many of which are still recovering months later. this morning we will hear your justification for the fy-'19 request. choosing to eliminate several programs and cut others with devastating implications particularly to new york. for example, your budget request would eliminate the national domestic preparedness con -- the emergency food and shelter program. providing to communities in crisis. your budget request will reduce the national pre-disaster mitigation fund by 61 million as we saw in the wake of super storm sandy, hurricane and harvey and maria responding to and recovering from a natural disaster costs more than investments and mitigation measures. in 2017 alone, there were 5

mr. chairman, do we have time for a second round? >> i don't know. >> don't know. okay. then i will anticipate we do and yield back. >> ms. lowey. >> thank you very much and thank you for your presentation. administrator long, i understand that fema and the department of homeland security are looking to change the way risk is calculated for metropolitan areas. risk could impact the allocation of grant funding in both the state, homeland security grant program and the urban area security initiative. i'm aware that the threat is changing and we need to take that into account. my concern is that rather than relying on a robust analysis of threat vulnerability and consequences, the risk analysis will be tweaked to fit what is only a perception of the evolving threat. that would defeat the purpose of having a rigorous risk methodology at all. so has any independent third party outside of fema or department of homeland security looked at the proposed changes to the risk methodology and do you think it might be valuable to have an independent review from the gao or some other source of expertise before you change the method for calcul