Transcripts For CSPAN3 House Homeland Security Subcommittee Hearing On FEMA Contracting 20240714

And the report is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before congress. Former special Counsel Robert Mueller set to appear before two committees of congress. The House Judiciary Committee and Intelligence Committee wednesday july 17th, 9 00 a. M. Eastern. He will testify in open session about his report into russian interference in the 2016 election. Watch live coverage on cspan 3, online at cspan. Org on listen with the cspan free radio app. Two household and security subcommittees held a joint hearing how fema contracts are awarded and managed. They want to know about a 30 Million Contract after Hurricane Maria was awarded to a new company and tarps were never delivered. They heard from fema, Government Accountability office and Homeland Security Department Inspector general office. The committee on Homeland Security will come to order. The committee is meeting today to receive testimony on fema contracting, reviewing Lessons Learned in past disasters to improve preparedness. I would like to thank chair woman small and Ranking Member crenshaw of the oversight management and accountability subcommittee for coming together with Ranking Member king and me to hold the hearing. I always want to thank witnesses for discussing the contracting. This week is hurricane preparedness week. Today marks 22 days until the 2019 Hurricane Season begins. Unfortunately there are still real questions about femas preparedness for disasters. Not the least of which that there is not a confirmed administrator. I am particularly concerned about femas contracting for disasters. Proper disaster contractors is crucial to the successful response efforts as disaster contracts provide for several survival and comfort items like food, water, blankets, cots that communities need following a major devastation. Disaster contracts also provide for important response related Services Like debris removal, translators and housing inspectors. While the magnitude of the effects of hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires and the like are obvious, fema continuously falls short in the realm of disaster contracting. From Hurricane Katrina we learned one of the most important aspects of Disaster Preparedness is advanced contracting. However here we are 14 years after katrina and the Government Accountability office noted the december 2018 report gao 19 dash 93 1993 fema still needs to improve its advanced contracting practices. Specifically the gao found the advanced contracting fema had in place prior to 2017 Hurricane Season were not sufficient to cover the need, the absence of which caused fema to scramble to enter into postdisaster contracts. Simply put, it needs to be more contracts in place before a disaster strikes. While it is difficult to predict exact needs prior to disasters we do know Hurricane Season is every june 1 through november 30 and history has shown us that fema is likely to be underprepared in some fashion. From a recent april 2019 gao report we also know fema is still struggling with acquiring and retaining disaster contracting workforce. The absence of adequate Staffing Levels causes undue delays in the screening and delivery of important goods following a disaster . There are instances in 2017 such as the failed contracts. In the case of bronze star llc contracts procedures resulted in delays delayed delivery of crucial supplies for those to protect their homes from further damage after the Hurricane Maria. Similarly the Tribute Contract was 30 million 30 million emergency meals and it had to be canceled only delivered 50,000 of the 30 million required. These type of contracting areas are troubling and have major consequences. We need to have an honest conversation today about how fema should proceed with preventing future contract missteps, the results of which are americans going without emergency goods and services. When disaster strikes the American People depend on the federal government to get it right. Yet as the gao has reported disaster contracting is unprepared and its disaster contract workforce is overwhelmed and overworked. Fema has also acknowledged its contracted workforce shortcomings as evidence in their 2017 Hurricane Season after action report. To make matters worse the president has again proposed a cut to the agencies discretionary funding complicating femas ability to address disasters contracting workforce challenges. Furthermore the recent federal government shutdown, roughly 6 months before the start of Hurricane Season caused fema to order a stop on outstanding contracts, causing the agency to lose valuable disaster contracting preparation time. Emergency preparedness response and recovery is too important a mission for this agency to consistently truckle with struggle with disaster contracting. Having experienced the horrors disasters can cause a community with Hurricane Sandy, i know how critical it is for fema to have effective processes in place before disaster strikes. With this i look forward to engaging dhs office about underlying issues that they have identified and seem to chronically caused fema to miss the mark with disaster contracts. I also look forward to hearing from fema about what congress can do to help the Agency Improve its disaster contracting. With that i recognize the Ranking Member the gentleman from new york for an Opening Statement. Thank you. I appreciate this hearing and thank you for calling it. Working with oir colleagues on two subcommittees. In 2012 super storm sandy wreaked havoc on new york and new jersey as you well know as well as other states resulting in 150 deaths, hundreds of thousands of impacted residents and over 65 billion in damages. Storm effects were widespread, extensive, in caused substantial flooding, massive power outages, fuel shortages in parts of the region. Following Hurricane Sandy fema released a report detailing successes , Lessons Learned and areas that needed improvement in hurricane Recovery Efforts. When area highlighted for improvement was reducing the complexity of the Public Assistance Program. The Public Assistance Grant Program provides federal assistance following a major disaster declaration. While fema did take several steps to help government officials better understand this program and reduce the complexity rules they continued to express confusion regarding the program and lack of priority to delete Recovery Efforts. The Sandy Recovery improvement act improved the program by providing alternative procedures to allow for flexibility for recovery projects that encouraged timely and costeffective completion of projects. These procedures rely on fixed cost estimates that allow recipients and sub recipients to use remaining funds for other eligible purposes if the cost of the project is below the estimate. It is noted that the new Public Assistance Program can quote serve as a springboard for fema to continue reducing the complexity of the program however according to the dhs Inspector General fema continues to fail in overseeing grant recipients effective management and Disaster Relief grants which poses potential Financial Risks to taxpayers. Gao reported on femas need for advanced Contracting Program. This enables the government to quickly and effectively utilize resources in the aftermath of a disaster. Among other recommendations they recommend fema update its strategy for advanced contracts to provide clear guidance on the use and prioritization of such contracts so they can quickly and costeffectively provide goods and services in disaster stricken areas. Delays in response and Recovery Efforts with black are not acceptable. Following major disasters this is essential to rebuilding our nations communities. It is imperative fema continues to streamline its efforts to ensure proper oversight and maintain its focus on survivors and their recovery needs. I look forward to hearing from our Witnesses Today. Thank you for being here. I yield back thank you. Thank you, mr. King. I now recognize the chairwoman of oversight management and accountability subcommittee. The gentlemen woman from new mexico, miss small for Opening Statement. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to cochair this hearing with you. With the 2019 Hurricane Season three weeks away this hearing couldnt be more timely. It is an opportunity to discuss Lessons Learned from past disasters and whether necessary improvements have been made preparing for future events. Disasters can strike with little to no warning. We experienced this firsthand in my district in new mexico when he tornado a tornado touched down this past march. I would also like to acknowledge those affected by the flooding and Ranking Member crenshaws in Ranking Member crenshaws district. These disasters demonstrate at a moments notice fema may need to assist thousands of survivors who suddenly have an immediate need for emergency goods and services. Fema cannot prepare for every eventuality but as a frequency increases it is an important as ever that the agency take the corrective action to better execute its no fail mission. Disaster contracting is one area where improvements are most needed. As he witnesses from gao and can confirm fema has a checkered history with Disaster Response and recovery contracts it awards and oversees. I am glad some improvements have been made since Hurricane Katrina struck the gulf coast in 2015. More contracts are being competitively bid reducing the potential for waste, fraud, and abuse. More contracts are being awarded to local vendors stimulating local economies. Challenges remain. Fema struggles to utilize advance contracts. These are awarded prior to a Natural Disaster when there is not an urgent need for goods and services which allows fema to maximize competition and properly evaluate vendor quality. Harvey, irma and. Harvey, irma and maria. In multiple instances fema had to cancel contract it awarded after hurricanes hit rather than relying on advanced contracts that were in place. Some of the vendors had no business being awarded government contracts. Fema awarded more than 30 million worth of emergency contracts to a company that was formed just weeks before struck. It is no surprise the company failed to deliver. Another firm with one employee and a history of canceled contracts was for some reason entrusted to deliver 30 million meals to hurricane survivors in puerto rico. Less than a month later the company only managed to supply 50,000 meals, about 1 10 of 1 of what was agreed to. Not surprisingly fema had to cancel this contract too. If fema had had more advance contracts in place or a Better Process for vetting vendors after a hurricane, some of these mistakes could have been avoided. Fema must do a better job of overseeing disaster contracts awarded by state and local government. As the Inspector General has reported local Emergency Managers some he may be dealing with disaster for the first time need guidance and training from fema on how to follow federal procurement regulations. At the end of the day it is federal tax dollars on the line. As the chair of our oversight management and accountability subcommittee i am also concerned about femas ability to recruit and retain qualified Contracting Officers. I understand as of january more than one third of positions within femas office were vacant and the agency has lost contracting staff since 2017. This is not the direction we need to be headed. If anything fema needs more Contracting Officers not less. These should be permanent positions not the short term hires they are using as a stopgap. I look forward to learning about the steps you have taken over the past two years to assess femas Workforce Needs and hire more contracting staff. The Procurement Office needs to be full strength as we head to the 2019 season. Thank you again, mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. I look forward to a fruitful discussion with all three of our witnesses here today. Thank you, chairwoman. I now recognize the Ranking Member of the oversight and management accountability subcommittee, the gentleman from texas, mr. Crenshaw, for an Opening Statement. Thank you, chairman payne. Thank you, member king and chairwoman torres small. Its great to be with all of you and thank you to our witnesses for being here. Ive been here long enough to see the range of issues this committee deals with from countering threats to terrorist activity to Natural Disasters, all can be harmful, affect national security, and most importantly, impact the American People. Im pleased we are holding this hearing today to explore the ways fema can improve its contracting. Fema has one of the most important functions of the federal government in helping our citizens prepare for and recover from disasters. My home state of texas witnessed the devastation that nature can cause when Hurricane Harvey hit in late august of 2017. It is something my constituents and i saw and dealt with firsthand. That storm brought torrential downpours that caused catastrophic flooding in houston and many of the areas i represent. Hurricane harvey cost 107 people their lives and is estimated to have cost 125 billion in damage. Texans are resilient and during the storm we evacuated our neighbors with the help of our friends from the cajun navy, volunteers from across the country, the Texas National guard, and the u. S. Coast guard. As soon as the waters receded we got to work on recovery. While we are grateful for the assistance from fema, we must always ask ourselves how we can do better. Is our role to review the activities of federal agencies and determine what we can do better. That is part of our oversight role in congress and on this committee. While 2017 was an unusual year because of the unprecedented number of disasters, including the hurricanes and the california wildfires, fema must be prepared for all disasters regardless of their frequency. Fema assists with Disaster Recovery utilizing three different methods. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, fema began using advance contracts for goods and services it typically needs in a disaster. The agency also provides help through postdisaster contracts and public assistance grants. In the 2017 disaster season, many of the postdisaster contracts were for Power Distribution equipment and food and water. Fema uses public assistance grants to supplement state and local efforts for things like debris removal and emergency protective measures as well as projects to repair infrastructure and facilities. Responsible administration of these contracts is vital to helping the victims of a disaster recover and in helping the states and localities recover and rebuild. We need to get these contracts right to ensure that we can adequately address basic needs immediately following a disaster. As we rebuild our communities, we need to ensure that federal funds are not wasted either. We should not be picking winners and losers with these contracts. They need to be entered with the goal that ensuring that everyone wins, the victims, the communities, the contractors and the taxpayers. Fema needs to continuously improve its management and oversight of its contracts to ensure that this is the case. While i applaud fema for its excellent work in helping rebuild lives and communities after a disaster, we all must recognize there may be ways to improve its operations. I look forward to hearing from the Witnesses Today on the best ways to add accountability and oversight in the Disaster Recovery process. I would also like to add that i have a report prepared by the texas General Land Office on Lessons Learned from Hurricane Harvey. This is a detailed proposal that i think fema should have, and i ask unanimous consent to enter it into the record. Duly noted. Yield back the balance of my time. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Now, its my honor to recognize the overall chairman of the Homeland Security committee, mr. Thompson. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Good morning to our panel of witnesses. I want to thank both you and chairwoman torres small for holding this hearing today and to the witnesses for being here. Disaster contracting is a central component of Disaster Preparedness and an issue that ive been following for quite some time. Since Hurricane Katrina exposed gaps in femas disaster contracting practices in 2005, the agency still has not managed to make the necessary adjustment that facilitates smoother response and Recovery Efforts and make fema a better steward for taxpayers dollars. Moving into the 2019 Hurricane Season, im concerned that fema will fall short in this area once again. To add to my worry, for the last two months, fema has not had a senateconfirmed administrator. In the absence of permanent leadership, fema is likely to get even further behind with preparing its disaster contracting initiatives. Contracting is incredibly important to how we, as a nation, prepare for and respond to disasters. After shortcomings were identified in preparation for and in response to Hurricane Katrina, congress enacted reforms in 2006 requiring fema to establish advance contracts for goods and services to enable the government to quickly and effectively mobilize resources in the aftermath of a disaster and provide a preference to local businesses in the area affected by major disaster. But as we will hear today from the dhs, oig and the jao, fema gao, fema has yet to adequately implement all of the reforms despite it being well over a decade since the law was passed. Having advance contracts in place before a disaster helps ensure the federal government has the adequate and appropriate resources to respond when a disaster strikes. Without these advance contracts, the government risks taxpayers money by spending more than is necessary for goods and services or, worse, americans in need might be left waiting as the federal government has to go out and award new contracts in the midst of a disaster. Fema must do its Due Diligence to ensure that Companies Select for advance contracts can meet the contract terms. The opportunity to bid on advance contracts must be full and open with equal consideration being given to Small Businesses including minorityowned businesses. In 2017 when responding to the catastrophic hurricanes harvey and maria, fema had to cancel multiple contracts due to its failure to weed out unqualified vendors. Some of the vendors had been barred from doing work with other agencies. While i know fema claims this did not affect their work on the ground in 2017, common sense tells us that Emergency Response is improved by having qualified vendors in place to provide goods and services reliably. Fema has always made postdisaster awards to vendors outside the disaster area without adequate justification, meaning the agency may have missed opportunities to award contracts to local businesses which could have helped jumpstart disasteraffected local communities. Moreover, fema must deal with staffing vacancies in the office of procurement, in the office of chief Procurement Officer, which as of last summer had over 70 vacant positions. Fema must not only fill these vacancies, it also needs to ensure its staff is properly trained to conduct the duties assigned to them. Well talk about it a little later because theyve hired new people. They hired 13, i think, and 12 have already left. So it continues to be a problem. So let me just say that we want to get it right. Fema is the last line of defense to help the American People. When all systems fail, fema should be there. Congress has been really good in supporting femas mission. Theyve given them the resources, now we just need to get it right. So i hope from these reports, mr. Chairman, that we get an opportunity to continue work on improving femas response. In light of that, id also like to suggest that we hold a meeting to discuss contracts governed by section 428, especially for puerto rico recovery. I made a couple of visits to puerto rico, and it just seems like we should be further along than we are. And i want to make sure if there is something were missing in this process to speed it up, that we fix it. With that, mr. Chair, i yield back. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Other members of the committee are reminded that under the committee rules, Opening Statements may be submitted for the record. Id like to welcome our panel witnesses. Our first witness, mr. Brian kamoie, who serves as associate administrator for Mission Support at fema. In this role, mr. Kamoie oversees the office of the chief Procurement Officer, which is responsible for femas contracting and acquisitions and office of the chief component Human Capital officer, which is responsible for personnel issues at the agency. Prior to joining fema in 2013, he served as senior director for policy on the White House National Security Council and Deputy Assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the u. S. Department of health and human services. Next we have ms. Marie mak, who leads the Government Accountability offices work on a wide range of issues involving acquisitions, contracting at the department of Homeland Security and the department of defense. Ms. Mak has nearly 20 years of service to gao. She previously worked at the Naval Air Systems Command in u. S. Coast guard headquarters. Am i pronouncing your name correctly . Oh, whew. All right. Got one right today. Finally, we are joined by ms. Kathleen trimble, Deputy Assistant Inspector General for audits at the department of Homeland Security, office of Inspector General, where she oversees Disaster Management and Infrastructure Protection issues. Prior to joining dhsoig in 2018, ms. Trimble worked at gao for 20 years. She has been responsible for multiple indepth reviews of major dhs acquisitions and was also involved with gaos assessment of federal, state, and local responses to Hurricane Katrina. Without objection, the witnesses full statements will be inserted in the record. I now ask each witness to summarize his or her statement for five minutes beginning with mr. Kamoie. Good morning, chairman payne and chairwoman torres small, Ranking Members king and crenshaw, and members of the subcommittee. My name is brian kamoie, and im the associate administrator for Mission Support at fema. On behalf of acting administrator gaynor, i appreciate the opportunity to talk with you today about the agencys disaster Contracting Program and its key role in achieving femas mission to help people before, during, and after disasters. Femas office of the chief Procurement Officer manages the agencys contracting needs to handle daytoday operations and support survivors throughout the Disaster Response and recovery process. Femas Procurement Team negotiates highquality, costeffective, and timely contracts to accomplish femas mission. Since 2016, fema has executed more than 32,000 contract actions resulting in over 10. 5 billion in contract obligations. Fema adheres to and assesses contractors according to the federal acquisition regulations. As part of the acquisition process, Contracting Officers evaluate proposals and vet potential contractors, including obtaining past performance information. During declared disasters, the federal acquisition regulations and department of Homeland Security policy give fema specific authorities to expedite contracting actions so our agency so our partners can obtain resources quickly to help survivors. These authorities, such as the unusual and compelling urgency exception and the federal acquisition regulations help streamline procurement timelines while adheres to procedures. Each year fema enters into preposition contracts in advance of disasters to enable the agency to meet Immediate Response needs before additional longerterm contracts are put into place. Prepositioned contracts provide a variety of services and commodities ranging from crisis counseling and Housing Inspection Services to the delivery of critical commodities like generators, water and meals. As of april 2019, fema has 87 prepositioned contracts, 23 of which are to Small Businesses. Following a disaster, femas goal is to contract with local companies within a declared disaster area for resource needs when practicable. Locally sourced contracts stimulate the local economy, create Job Opportunities and support longterm recovery for affected communities. Since 2017, of the more than 6. 9 billion obligated in support of disasters, locally sourced contracts made up more than 842 million, representing 12. 2 of total disaster dollars obligated. Additionally, fema has an Industry Liaison Program which establishes strategic relationships with vendors nvd stakeholders, services as an information provider for vendors seeking to do business with fema, and connects vendors with Program Offices in support of femas mission. The programs goal is to support the availability of the right resources and services at the right time to local and state governments and disaster survivors. During the historic 2017 Hurricane Season, fema executed more than 3,500 disasterrelated contract actions for a total obligation of 2. 6 billion. In addition, the agency executed more than 1 billion in nondisaster contracts. This is more than a 100 increase in femas annual expenditures and a 50 increase in the number of contracting actions from the prior year. Based on Lessons Learned from the 2017 Hurricane Season as well as recommendations from the Government Accountability office and the Departments Office of Inspector General, fema has made improvements in our contracting process. These include increasing the dollar ceiling on prepositioned contracts, adjusting periods of performance on contracts so that none expire during Hurricane Season, awarding prepositioned contracts to enhance transportation capability for island responses, and increasing the number of contracting personnel supporting disasters, specifically seniorlevel and disaster acquisition staff. Fema also introduced a Master Acquisition Planning System in 2016, a tool that results in acquisitions that are more Cost Effective and best meet femas needs through preplanning of resources. As part of our ongoing outreach and education, femas Procurement Disaster Assistance Team provides training to our partners to familiarize them with federal procurement standards applicable to femas disaster grants. These teams deploy to disaster locations to provide our partners training where they need it, when they need it. Fema is also in the process of developing a procurement tool kit that will help our partners develop their own prepositioned contracts. Im pleased to be here today to represent the dedicated fema staff and for the opportunity to discuss with you our Important Mission to help people before, during, and after disasters. Im happy to take any questions the committee may have. Thank you. Thank you, sir. I now recognize ms. Mak to summarize her statement for five minutes. Good morning, chairman payne and chairwoman torres small, Ranking Members king and crenshaw, and distinguished members of the subcommittees. Thank you for inviting me here today to discuss federal contracting efforts in response to the 2017 hurricanes and wildfires. These efforts are critical given that contracts play a key role in the immediate Disaster Response and longerterm community recovery. Also, effective planning and maximizing the use of contracts following a disaster can help fema to quickly and Cost Effectively provide needed goods and services to survivors. Our most recent reports on advance and postdisaster contracting indicate that fema continues to face several key challenges. The three areas that i would like to highlight today are contracting workforce issues, coordination and transparency. First, in our reviews on Disaster Response, workforce has come up as a theme. Specific to contracting, fema leveraged contracting staff from its regions, headquarters, and its deployable contracting workforce to support Disaster Response. Yet we found that eight out of femas ten regional offices have only one permanent fulltime contracting official. Given that regional offices are responsible for managing most postdisaster contracts as well as coordinating with states and localities on the use of these advance contracts, not having enough contracting personnel becomes significant after a disaster hits. Recognizing this challenge, in the short term fema plans to fill some of these gaps using contractor support and to hire some additional staff dedicated to Disaster Response. However, without assessing its current contracting workforce to determine what mission and skill gaps really exist, it will be difficult for fema to fill the contracting positions with the specific skills it needs to better respond to future disasters. Second, in our review of advance contracts, those that are put in place prior to disasters so that it can be expedited in getting critical goods and services to the survivors, we found inconsistencies with femas efforts to perform regular outreach with states to help them in establishing their own advance contracts since they are really the First Responders after a disaster hits. It is also important that states and localities as well as femas own workforce are aware of what federal advance contracts exist and how they can be leveraged. In this case we found that femas documentation listing advance contracts did not consistently identify contracts for lifesustaining goods such as generators, meals, manufactured housing units. As a result, fema contracting personnel and their state and local counterparts may not be well informed about the types of goods and services that are available. Recognizing these challenges, fema is developing a toolkit to share information on advance contracts. But at the time of our review, it was Still Deciding what information to include. Finally, theres a lack of transparency regarding full extent of disaster contracting obligations. This is due to the criteria for closing a National Interest action code in the federal procurement database system. It is the only public governmentwide database that is used for tracking federal procurements. This code is what contracting personnel select when entering related contract information into the system. The closing of the codes for both harvey and irma less than a year after the storms made landfall make it significantly more difficult to determine the extent of federal contracting obligations. In contrast, codes for prior hurricanes were open for at least five years with the katrina code remaining open for 13 years. Without reevaluating the criteria to close these codes, the ability to identify and track federal contracting dollars for disasters is not comprehensive and provides limited visibility to all interested stakeholders, including congress. Chairman payne and chairwoman torres small, Ranking Members king and crenshaw, members of the subcommittees, this completes my statement. I would be prepared to respond to any questions that you may have. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Now i recognize ms. Trimble to summarize her statement for five minutes. Thank you, chairman payne, chairwoman torres small, Ranking Members king and crenshaw, and members of the subcommittees. Thank you for inviting me here today to discuss Lessons Learned from past disasters to improve fema contracting. My testimony today will focus on the department of Homeland Security office of Inspector Generals work to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of femas contracting practices in support of Disaster Response and Recovery Efforts. As the oigs body of work has shown, fema has longstanding challenges managing both its contracting process and ensuring locally awarded contracts meet federal requirements. First, let me provide some context. As you know, when disasters occur, state and local entities are the first to respond. But when the magnitude of a disaster exceeds the state, territorial, tribal or local governments capabilities, fema may assist, including through awarding federal contracts however, a recent work has demonstrated that fema contracting needs improvement. For example, in a recently issued report, we found fema did not follow all contracting laws, regulations and procedures in awarding more than 30 million for two bronze star contracts for roof tarps and plastic sheeting. Although expediting the contract award process may be necessary following major disasters, femas missteps could have caused a qualified bidder to be eliminated from further consideration or, in the case of bronze star, an unqualified bidder receiving a federal contract. Failure of the bronze star contracts delayed femas process for delivering crucial supplies to help puerto rican residents protect their homes after Hurricane Maria. Fema did not concur with our recommendations but told us that it is taking actions that we believe address the intent of our recommendations. In our march 2019 review of the traditional sheltering Assistance Program, we found fema released to its contractor the personally identifiable information of approximately 2. 3 million disaster survivors of the 2017 hurricanes and wildfires. Fema released survivors financial account information, putting them at an increased risk of Identity Theft and fraud. This privacy incident occurred because fema lacked controls to ensure it shared only what the contractor needed to administer the tsa program. While we commend fema for already taking actions to address our recommendations, fema estimates it will not fully implement all recommendations until june of 2020, one year after the coming Hurricane Season. Now i will discuss contractrelated challenges affecting local governments and impacting fema reimbursement. Following disasters, local communities contract for a range of goods and services. Yet our work has found fema faces significant challenges ensuring state and local governments understand and comply with federal requirements. From october 2014 through may 2019, we identified more than 363 million in contract costs ineligible for federal reimbursement because local entities did not follow federal contracting requirements. One common challenge with local contracts is monitoring debris removal. Debris removal costs are significant, averaging about onethird of total damage costs per recent hurricanes or an estimated 1. 5 billion in florida and georgia following hurricane irma. Our september 2018 management alert highlights the Financial Risks involved when contractors are not properly monitored. Femas guidance places the responsibility for monitoring debris removal operations on local governments. We generally found that local governments hired contractors, debris Monitoring Companies to oversee other contractors, debris haulers. We also found that fema and the state did not perform direct monitoring to ensure local governments fulfilled their responsibilities. Debris Monitoring Companies are responsible for estimating debris loads. If monitors overestimate the amount of debris collected, local governments will pay more than they should and then request federal reimbursement at an inflated cost to taxpayers. Our team traveled to florida and georgia and observed debris removal operations firsthand. These pictures from our field work depict truck loads that the monitor overestimated as 50 to 90 full when in reality, the trucks were only 25 to 50 full. Our review found that when fema provided even limited oversight such as it did in georgia, it identified almost half a Million Dollars in ineligible debris costs for one county in just one week. In closing, the massive scale of damage caused by seemingly more frequent disasters and the large number of highdollar value contracts that fema and local communities will continue to award pose grave concern. For these reasons, we continue to review these areas, aiming to emphasize the need for positive change. We will advise you of the results of our ongoing work once it is completed. Mr. Chairman, ms. Chairwoman, this concludes my testimony. Im happy to answer any questions you or the other members of the subcommittee may have. Thank you. Id like to thank all the witnesses for their testimony. Ill remind each member that he or she will have five minutes to question the panel. I will now recognize myself for questions. Id really like to start with the bronze star issue. My understanding is that the company was formed a month before Hurricane Maria hit, had only two employees, and had never held a government contract. And yet fema awarded the company two contracts worth more than 30 million with the expectation that it would deliver 475,000 emergency tarps and 60,000 units of plastic sheeting for temporary roof repairs. For perspective, i have a visual on the monitors of the emergency tarps that were used on homes and buildings after Hurricane Maria. As you can see, there are a lot of structures with substantial roof damage. Disaster survivors needed these tarps. Ms. Trimble, can you tell the subcommittee what happened to the two contracts given to bronze star . So shortly after the contracts were awarded to bronze star, fema learned that bronze star would not be able to deliver the tarps in the time frame specified. Thats the bottom line. I can go into a little bit if you like as to the problems we uncovered during the solicitation and award process that led to that outcome. Okay. Mr. Kamoie, was fema aware that bronze star, a twoperson company, formed more than one month before Hurricane Maria hit landfall, didnt have any Prior Experience for awarding its contracts for emergency tarps and plastic sheeting . And if so, did this raise any red flags for you . Thank you, chairman payne. Bronze star was awarded those contracts after full and open competition. Lack of Prior Experience is not a reason to preclude a vendor from competing. They were determined to be technically acceptable and financially responsible and otherwise eligible. Those contracts ended up being the tarp contract, one of six contracts. So we had redundant capability. And as soon as it became clear to us that they were unable to perform, we terminated the contracts, and bronze star was not paid under those contracts at all. Can the oig respond to that, please . So, in our review of the two bronze star contracts, we did find some missteps that fema took that we believe could have led to different outcomes. First of all, contracting staff did not use the Disaster Response registry, which is required, to look at potential vendors for the types of supplies and services they needed, including plastic sheeting and blue tarps. Second, the solicitations that fema posted included inappropriate or incorrect clauses as to what the source of the materials should be. What fema posted was that all materials had to be from the u. S. When, in fact, they meant to post a clause that would have permitted a little more flexibility and allowed for some materials to come from outside of the u. S. That led to the third problem that when fema personnel reviewed the solicitations it received, the offers it received, rather than holding the bidders to the buy america, the america only standard, it actually did review the offers based on the broader allowing of materials from outside of the u. S. The problem with that is that by posting a solicitation that required by america only u. S. Sourced products, i think fema missed out on the chance for other companies to bid, and then it was not appropriate Technical Evaluation to say that bronze star and the other bidder met the terms of the contract because they didnt, because bronze star said it would be sourcing materials from both the u. S. And outside of the u. S. And then finally, our fourth observation was that we felt fema could have done more to confirm that bronze star would ultimately be able to meet the terms of the contract. For example, in the followon solicitation after bronze star failed, fema did ask the next contractors to provide more information verifying that they would in fact be able to meet the terms of the contract. Okay. Well, im going to try to stick within the parameters and hopefully well be able to come back to we obviously see how big a problem this one company was. And i will recognize the Ranking Member, mr. King. Thank you, chairman. First of all, thank all the witnesses for your testimony. Mr. Kamoie, National Interest action codes are used to track contract actions across the federal government as they relate to a particular disaster, and these codes are going to have arbitrary closing dates. For instance, the code for katrina lasted for 13 years, the code for Hurricane Sandy remained open for over five years. But after only 9 1 2 months, the nia codes for harvey and irma were closed. Can you tell me what the criteria is for deciding when to keep them open and when to close them . Sure. The National Interest action codes are governed by a memorandum of agreement between the Homeland Security and the department of defense. Based on the gaos recommendation, and i believe i saw in the response, will revisit those timelines with gsa and dod. Ms. Trimble, can you comment on that, the disparity between 13 years and 9 1 2 months . Im not saying anything is wrong. Im just wondering why theres such a disparity. So that was work that ms. Mak spoke to if you would like to ask her the question. When we asked department of Homeland Security why they closed these National Interest action codes, or nia codes, their rationale was very inconsistent with the criteria they have in this memorandum of agreement between these three departments. One of them was they said the purpose is to track federal procurement related to the response and not recovery, but their own agreement says it covers response and recovery. Another reason they gave us was that the number of contract actions that fema was making had decreased. Our concern there was there were other components still within dhs as well as dod that continue to execute contracts related to both harvey and irma. And then dhs also pointed to femas own internal tracking system that has the ability to track contracts by disaster and budget line. But not all other agencies that respond to that way have these internal systems. And then remember internal Agency Systems are not available to the public, and there is no onestop shopping for a governmentwide database other than this federal procurement database system. Thank you. Im trying to get some good news out of bad news. Obviously were here these types of hearings. I understand that. But how effective do you think fema is at Lessons Learned . For instance, having lived through sandy and saw the devastation there, what lessons were learned from that that were successfully applied to subsequent hurricanes . In other words, can you show actually positive action that resulted from sandy . I guess well start with the ig. Sure. Thank you. I think weve seen some mixed results in how fema has responded to the recommendations related to our body of work. We have years worth of work looking at femas relationship with state and local governments as they carry out work for Disaster Response and recovery, which is not, you know, done through direct fema contracts but with state and local governments. They issue their own contracts that are then eligible for federal reimbursement. So we, for years, have been recommending to fema well, first of all, weve been finding for years that local governments arent doing a very good job at following federal contracting requirements such as full and open competition or providing opportunities for local, small, and disadvantaged businesses. We also, through the years, have made a number of observations and often recommend that money that the local governments are requesting to be reimbursed is not, in fact, eligible because they havent followed federal procurement contracting rules. Fema has kind of a mixed bag in responding to our recommendations. They often dont take back money from local governments, which can be understandable. But what were looking for is for fema to provide more specific information to state and local governments to make sure this problem doesnt happen in the first place, to make sure that local governments fully understand the requirements theyre expected to adhere to if they are going to request to be reimbursed with federal funds. My time is just about up. Ms. Mak, do you have any further comment on that . From a gao perspective, our biggest concerns with fema in terms of being able to address these contracts are a lack of strategy and then guidance to do a lot of these things, and the systemic issue of acquisition planning. Given that workforce is such a challenge as well, guidance is extremely important to have that in place so people know where to go, what to see. And then the strategy of how we do it, the longterm broader look of how we do it and how we can be better prepared. Mr. Kamoie . Thank you, Ranking Member king. Since you mentioned sandy, ill just cite a few things that have happened since sandy which we believe are improving. Quickly. Since Hurricane Sandy, we have tripled our number of Contracting Officers from 45 to 163. In our office of the chief Procurement Officer, we established expeditionary and Incident Support branches. Our competition rate for contracts in fy17, 85 of our contracts were competitive. In 18, it was 77 . And even gao noted we have been responsive in training our Contracting Officers on defining the local area. For example hes starting to give me a look here. Youve gone over the time, but anyway, thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your indulgence. Thank you, sir. Next we will hear from the gentle lady from new mexico, chairwoman torres small. Thank you, mr. Chair. Mr. Kamoie, i really appreciate you noting femas role both before, during, and after disaster. And i want to touch on femas communication and coordination challenges with state and local governments, something that all of you have touched on during your testimony. The community i serve, the village of ruidoso, new mexico, has been struggling for more than ten years to negotiate federal assistance for extensive flooding that occurred back in 2008. Based on guidance from fema, the village awarded contracts for bridge replacements and is in the process of awarding contracts for extensive sewer repairs. As i understand it now, after a significant part of the work is complete, fema has decided that some of the projects are no longer eligible for federal assistance. After ten years of slow correspondence, challenging regulations and employee turnover, were seeing local officials that have been given a june 2020 deadline to complete all remaining construction. Mr. Kamoie, i dont expect you to have the details on this particular situation, but can i have your commitment today that someone at fema will look further into this issue and communicate its findings with my office and the village of ruidoso . Absolutely, chairwoman torres small. Thank you. One word on our assistance or coordination with state and local government and a development, i believe, certainly since katrina is our Procurement Disaster Assistance Team. This is a team of highly trained attorneys and contract specialists that we deploy to disasters to provide guidance to our state and local partners on federal procurement requirements and the requirements of our Public Assistance Grant Program. And in fy19 thus far, they have been deployed to 80 of declared disasters. So we recognize the importance of providing good guidance. Thank you. Im glad to see that improvement made. The challenge is rehashing what happened in 2008 before a lot of these improvements were made. You have my commitment well follow up. Thank you. Now im shifting a bit. Femas 2017 after action report found that the agencys advance contracts were exhausted after the hurricanes harvey, irma and maria, and fema committed to awarding new contracts for future storms. I noted you recognized there were 87 current contracts. What is femas process for determining that number and what types of contracts that are issued for advance contracts . Thats a great question, chairwoman torres small. We work with our Program Offices, the office of response and recovery. We look at the needs of, you know, essentially the last several disaster seasons to understand where, had we had advance contracts in place, we might have delivered, you know, more quickly or more comprehensively. So its a Lessons Learned process, and working with our field offices and our regions to understand what it is we would need in place to put the right agreements in place. Are you confident you have all of the advanced contracts you need for the 2019 Hurricane Season . Yes. Okay. In december 2018, a gao report found that fema did not have an uptodate strategy and clear guidance for its own contracting staff on the use of advance contracts. And ms. Trimble noted how such guidance could have helped in avoiding the contracting mistakes with bronze star. Mr. Kamoie, what steps is fema taking to address gaos finding . I appreciate the question, chairwoman torres small. We do hold regular training with our disaster procurement staff and, in fact, from april 29th to may 3rd, we had over 100 of our staff, including our Disaster Acquisition Response Team in baton rouge, louisiana. Ive looked at the agenda of that multipleday training, and it includes everything from advance contracting to local setasides to documentation required when we deviate from local setasides. So we continually provide training and guidance to our staff. Thank you. Ms. Mak, how would you assess that response so far . Our concern with the training is when they provide the training, they have an advance contract list that is different from what fema headquarters has as their consolidated advance contract list. When theres two resources being used as advance contract lists and they differ, it causes differences of what the states and localities know and within fema, they dont know what advance contract lists are, what theyre using. And both of those we talked to officials. They using both of those as resources. That inconsistency creates confusion. It creates, okay, what can i use . Whats really available within fema and then externally with states and localities. It creates confusion so the states and localities dont really know whats available from the federal government. Thank you. I yield my time. Thank you. The chair now recognizes mr. Crenshaw, the Ranking Member. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here. I want to start with where i left off on my Opening Statement about the report from the General Land Office from texas, and i would again recommend everyone take a look at that. Some of the best ideas will come from local levels. And some of the issues they saw there were attempts to, i think, devolve some of the responsibilities down to the state level, where they understand their population better. They understand what needs to be done and can remove certain issues such as overlap, lack of coordination and more generally keeping the Government Solutions to the lowest possible level. Are you aware of any other states, or has this conversation come up before where states are asking to take on some of the roles traditionally done by fema with simply overarching support by fema . Thank you, Ranking Member crenshaw. I mean, our philosophy in Disaster Response is that disasters should be federally supported, state managed, and locally executed. So i think its a continual conversation about the relative roles and responsibilities and who can serve the population best. Im not familiar with that particular Texas Land Office report, but i look forward to reading it. What kind of progress has there been made and what has been brought up before with this Better Communications with states on what exactly fema is going to do and what exactly the state is going to do . Has there been any progress in that direction as it relates to contracts specifically, too . I think the Procurement Disaster Assistance Team has made Great Strides in clarifying that and that theyve been to 85 of the declared disasters this year, and i believe last year they got to 70 . We continue to clarify and provide guidance and even on debris monitoring, were looking at how to update our debris monitoring guidance. Weve made our partners aware that debris monitors are reimbursable expense under the Public Assistance Program. Were looking at developing uniform guidance on noncompliance. So what our state and local partners can do about contractors who do not perform. So, can we communicate better . I would submit to you, sir, we can always communicate better and always clarify. I do believe weve made progress. I appreciate that. Im also especially concerned about the Record Keeping issue. Its really hard to figure out what to do better if we dont keep good records, and this came up with the nia issue as well. What is being done to fix that . So, in accordance with the gaos recommendation, my understanding is that the three departments who are the parties to that memorandum of agreement about the time line and the criteria for the closure of the National Incident action codes, well revisit that agreement and make sure were providing the transparency we need. Okay. On the related to workforce issues, its one of the most important things that ensures success, and you mentioned before that youve increased pretty markedly the number of contractors working. Thats good news. How are they incentivized, though, to make the most efficient and effective decisions . Were hearing a lot about the bronze star issue. Are there consequences when someone blatantly makes a mistake like this . How does that work . So, on the workforce issue, because ive not actually talked about it in any depth, in addition to contractual support, we put an acquisition support contract in place with 21 staff. We are seeking to fill an additional 51 of cadre of oncall response and recovery staff, but weve also made available no additional Staff Members of our existing Procurement Office, in terms of their number, but weve crosstrained them to all at our Operations Branch support the National Response coordination center. Theres 69 available. As to your question as to accountability, the bronze star contract was a full and open competition and found technically acceptable. We continue to provide guidance. We use that as a lesson learned. So we continue to work with our workforce to make sure theyre making the most effective, efficient decisions they can. I want to end with a question about the maps system. This is a recent system that got put in place to improve how workers can use the contracting system. But it was also reported that many in the Program Office are unfamiliar with this system. So my question is, are there any problems with this system that you would like to share with this committee, and are there any problems with getting everyone trained up on it . So it is a system that allows us to tell our Program Offices, for example, 18 months in advance of an expiration of a contract in place so that we can work with them to plan for that acquisition. So it will take continual reinforcement, training, and guidance to get everybody to take maximum advantage of it. I dont think thats a problem of the system so far as change management and making sure Everybody Knows of the resource thats available. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking Member. Next we will have the gentle lady from nevada, ms. Titus. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Kamoie, i appreciate that some of these things weve talked about happened before you got there, but i think we need to hear what steps fema is taking so that we can avoid another Tribute Contract and problem or a Whitefish Energy problem or a situation where one very generous chef and a paella pan can feed more people than fema can. What i hear from you is piecemeal responses as opposed to any overall strategy. You continue to defend the contract with bronze star and weve heard, well, theyve done a little. Theyre looking at it. But heres the title of the report, fema should not have awarded two contracts to bronze star, llc. Thats about as plain as you can get. I mean, it doesnt say, maybe they did and it was legal and they looked at everything. It says they should not have awarded it. That doesnt leave much question for doubt. So i think what we need from you is a strategy where you are looking at systemic changes, not just responding to individual disasters or contracts. But having said that, i want to ask you some more about the workforce issue. I chair the subcommittee on economic development, public buildings, and Emergency Management, and we have jurisdiction over the stafford act. So were going to have some hearings in the coming weeks with the deputy administrator, and well talk about the shortfalls. You mentioned a few figures just there, but i have some basic questions. Have you looked at whether you think it would be better to have Government Employees or longterm contracts to fill these Workforce Needs, and do you have a strategy of that . Do you have a list of the contracts that you have in place to kind of get ahead of the game as opposed to responding to incidents . Can you address those issues . Absolutely, congresswoman titus. Thank you for the questions. We are in the final stages, and im sure deputy or acting administrator gaynor will speak to this when he visits with you, of a coordinated workforce review where we have looked at our incident management workforce in an attempt strategically to right size it and look at what kinds of personnel would best fit those needs. We do have contractors in that workforce in our public assistance and individual assistance, Technical Assistance positions for example, and then we have other types of positions for others. So once that coordinated workforce review is completed, wed be glad to provide it to you and the committee. But we are taking a close look at that. In terms of i just want to say in terms of systemically looking at contracts, we do an after action and look systemically across all of our contracts. And i would submit to you we never like to see a contractor not perform. We dont want to terminate for nonperformance. In the 2017 Hurricane Season, between 59 advance contracts and 1,973 postdisaster contracts, out of 2,032 contracts, we terminated four for nonperformance. Do we like to see that . Of course not. Is that evidence of a systemic problem that we need to address . Its an awful small percentage of the overall contracts, but weve taken the recommendations seriously. We have taken steps to require more information from potential vendors so that we can make responsibility determinations, and we take our stewardship of taxpayer dollars very seriously. So we do look systemically at our contracting. I believe it was mentioned earlier that one of the contracts you gave was to a company that had been kind of blacklisted or not used by other agencies. When youre choosing the contracts, do you look at that information to see if they have a record with another Government Agencies that might not have been successful . We do, congresswoman. I believe youre referring to tribute, and there was what i would consider to be derogatory information. But unfortunately, the system of record that kept that information kept it for three years, and it turns out upon further review, the derogatory information about nonperformance was over three years old. In fact, it was five years old. We paid tribute only for what it delivered, the meals that it delivered, and that was one of eight feeding contracts. And so we had redundant capability to provide what disaster survivors needed. Is there anything legislative that you need to allow you to do this better . Maam, i cant think of another authority. If we do, well certainly let you know. I believe we have the authorities we need. It relies on us continuing to train our contracting professionals who are very much on the lookout to make sure were being responsible stewards of the taxpayer dollars. Does gao agree with this assessment . Our biggest concern when it comes to managing these contracts, like you indicated, is workforce. Until they really do a even as i mentioned earlier, hiring contractor support and term limited staff, dedicated Disaster Response, thats like a bandaid. Thats a shortterm solution. They have to have a longterm strategic plan, and the assessment that they gave us for 2018, to us, was not really an assessment. It just included numbers of people, of contracting officials. It didnt identify what kind of contracting officials you need. There are differences in contracting officials, and then where do you want them . In the regions, like i mentioned, if you only have one fulltime contracting official in each of the eight regions, thats a problem. We need them to identify where and what, longterm have a strategy put in place. When is that going to happen . Weve asked for a time line and a plan. Id like to see that, if you get that. Yes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Next well have the gentleman from louisiana, mr. Higgins. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank the Witnesses Today, speaking to us in this important hearing. Regarding advance contracts, i have several questions. In the continental United States, responding to a disaster, when fema responds to a disaster, access to the affected and impacted communities and populations, we find a way to get there regardless of road damage and bridges. Again, youre dealing with the continental United States. But when dealing with an island like puerto rico, one of the things that i encountered was quite frustrating. In an effort to respond i represent south louisiana. We have major ports and a tremendous skill set there. Very compassionate people. Were certainly accustomed to dealing with Natural Disasters and hurricanes and have a density of population of men and women that generationally know how to respond and wanted to go help in puerto rico. One of those assets, shall we say, in south louisiana included barges that could quickly establish Beach Landing and access roads to the major roads and arteries to distribute femas prepositioned, precontracted services to the impacted areas and populations of puerto rico because the traditional access through the established ports and through the roads and bridges, they couldnt get anything anywhere. So in the common sense planning for advance contracts, when were dealing with island populations, does fema now have a plan to have advance contracts for barge access for Beach Landings . These guys can quickly establish access roads to distribute materials that ended up sitting in the ports and on the docks in puerto rico for a long time. It was quite challenging to get that relief material and services, supplies, et cetera. To the impacted populations. What has fema done since then regarding beach access via barge . Thank you for the question, congressman higgins. We have enhanced our transportation contracts, shipping and air for both the islands and alaska. Ill need to follow up with you on the details because i think youre mentioning some specific modes of transport, and i dont want to misspeak. But we have addressed with advance contract can my office reach out to your office and share some data with you regarding that . Absolutely. Thank you. Id like to move on. Building Code Enforcement in puerto rico is a concern that all of us should have. Its an american treasure. Harvested from the paychecks of working americans and distributed quite compassionately in large amounts. And in america, you know, we have an expectation that we mentioned the stewardship of these funds. So building Code Enforcement, generally speaking, whats your observation on that . How strong theyve adopted new codes which is encouraging, but how do you see the enforcement of building codes now that were a year into this thing . Mr. Higgins, enforcement of building codes is outside both my expertise and area of responsibility so im going to take its within your parameter of opinion, though. Im going to take the question back and well follow up with you on the agencys view. Safe answer from a witness. One final question. What policies are in place to encourage contractors that have contracted with fema to avoid participating in fraud or accusations of fraud with subcontractors . I had conversations with subcontractors that were that were encouraged to do work and then never paid by folks that had contracts with fema. And they had no recourse through the government because their contract wasnt with the government. What Investigative Authority do you have . What recourse do these subcontractors have . What policies do you have in place to protect against fraud . And with my remaining time, please answer that, sir. Certainly. We do take the stewardship seriously. We provide oversight. I dont know the answer on that recourse or what remedy subcontractors have. But, of course, we have our office of Inspector General within my division of fema. The office of the chief security officer. We have a fraud investigations unit. So can you get the committee back a more specific answer on that . And my time has expired but wed appreciate that. Absolutely. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield. Thank you, sir. Next the gentleman from new york, mr. Rose. Thank you, chairman. Im a always slightly interested in yielding all my time to mr. Higgins because i always do enjoy your questions, sir. But ill resist. Ill resist. My district was one of the hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy. We experienced firsthand how many bad contractors were really hired and how they just totally failed the great people of Staten Island and South Brooklyn in new york city. Misinformation led to just absolute chaos in the days after the storm. The contractors on the ground, they kept changing the rules. On victims while losing their paperwork over and over again. They were overpaid. People got rich. And, believe it or not, my District Office still has active cases dealing with this recovery. So, you know, you all i dont want to be redauntd because were all here with a shared interest of trying to fix something. Sir kamoie, right . Yes. You said something that intrigued me. You said basically congress cant give you any Additional Authority. Youre good to go. And my question is very simple, are we . In the event the next superstorm is coming, the next hurricane is coming, you said youve learned lessons from the past. When another Natural Disaster hits my community or any of ours, is fema going to be there to get the job done . And what else can we do to ensure that thats the case. Congressman rose, i appreciate the question. So my response on, do we need additional authorities was to looking systemically at our contracting practices. And when congresswoman titus asked me that question, i cant think of any Additional Authority we need to look at our contracting. Congress did providous the response and recovery side. Now im going well beyond contracting and just the agencys overall response and recovery. Congress gave us and we very much appreciate the authorities you provided us in the Disaster Recovery reform act that we are very actively implementing. Everything from our ability to increase administrative cost reimbursement to our state partners, to authorities with our workforce. So we asked you, and you provided a great deal of authority in that legislation. And that authority basically authorizes you to prepare for something. Preadvance authoritying, so on and so forth. Is there any mechanism in place, for all of you, for us to ensure district by district that you have done that . So if i could have a superstorm hit next week, is there any database i can look and say, all right, man, femas good to go. Weve got our x, y, z contractors already in place. Do we have any system in place where i can ensure that you have done your job . So what we have is our National Preparedness report, and we work with our state and local partners where they report to us their capability gaps. We invest in nondisaster and preparedness grant funding. So we do report against kind of core capabilities that do give us a general sense ouf our preparedness. Ill have to go back and talk with my colleagues about whether thats county by county. That would be, or Congressional District by Congressional District. However you want to organize, it would be wonderful. And i do want to make a formal request that you get back to us on that. That we have youve just said when it comes to contracting, given us the authority you need. Now we want to be able to check that youve exercised that authority. Yes, maam. What we found is theres inconsistent coordination within the regions. Different regions. Coordinate it more regularly and some did not. Therefore, we did make a recommendation to have more regular coordination to achieve those benefits that youre talking about. Because the positive relationships can help in terms of the fema and the state Emergency Management personnel providing opportunities for both fema and the states and localities to establish their contracts, the advance contracts they need. And knowing which contracts are available and then, as well as fema knowing what the state can do to respond initially before the federal government. Absolutely. Well help you find the plumbers and roofers. We definitely found inconsistencies. We all have those folks in need of work, but no one wants to be caught flatfooted again. Thank you. I yield the remainder of my time. Thank you, sir. Well now hear from the gentleman from texas, mr. Taylor. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I appreciate this hearing. Certainly the last year that i was in the texas senate last year, we had a lot of harvey hearings and became very familiar. A lot of hand wringing. Obviously, tremendously complicated to recover from a disaster. And i would commend commissioner bushs report from the gao in texas which was the point for Harvey Recovery in texas that Ranking Member crenshaw put into the record. I think that that is a very good Lessons Learned that texas had in their experience interacting with fema. And, clearly, that was a very important experience for my state. Just specifically, and i wanted to just mr. Kamoie, i want to go to your written testimony. You outline a series of changes or improvements. And ill quickly read the headlines here. Increasing the dollar ceiling, adjusting periods of performance, enhancing the transportation capabilities for island responses, increasing the number of contracting personnel to support disasters. Increasing the number of Disaster Acquisition Response Team staff, increasing the number of senior level acquisition personnel and filling critical vacancies. So my question is, it sounds like these improvements are under way. But are there pieces of these improvements or that need to be, that you need statutory assistance . In other words, is there legislation thats required from the United States congress to assist fema to implement these changes . These seem like good changes. Theyre well thought through. What can we do . What is our role . Thank you, congressman taylor. In a number of cases youve cited, theyre completed. Our increasing the dollar ceiling, adjusting periods of performance, enhancing transportation capabilityies. Well need to think about whether any statutory changes are required to implement the others. At this point, i cannot think of any, but if we do, well follow up with you. Okay. I mean, its obviously, you know, our job is to legislate and your job is to act. If theres statutory assistance that you need, let us know. Were we, obviously, are all here for the same thing, to have a great disaster Response Recovery effort. And that is a collective effort and certainly congress is part of that. If you dont have the Statutory Authority you need, just building on what congressman rose mentioned, shifting over to texas specifically, something that i heard over and over again last year from local governments was the inability to understand from fema whether or not a contract had been awarded. What the extent was, the services that will be provided, and they were generally frustrated. They just couldnt seem to quite get straight answers. And i just wanted to hear what your thoughts were about how we can get more certainty for a subdivision to know, hey, this is taken care of. You know, this tarp thing is taken care of. This water thing is taken care of. These meals are taken care of. This debris removal has been taken care of. Because thats a clearly certainty is important for people to operate. Because they know you dont have it, then they can go work on it themselves. But if they are unclear if they call and say, we dont know. We cant help you, thats very frustrating for that mayor, for the head of that particular mud division, whatever that subdivision in texas may be. I appreciate that, congressman taylor. I think its going to require more navigating not just regulatory requirements but clarity youre asking for in terms of spelling out kind of whats in and whats out. The last thing ill say on the legislative offer, again, i appreciate it. Ill just say again we appreciate very much the Disaster Recovery reform act that congress passed, gave us a lot of authorities that we needed. Thank you. Im sort of reattacking this. What are you going to do so the next disaster, a mayor knows when he calls he gets a definitive answer, no, it has been proved, no, it hasnt. Well continue to reach out through joint field offices, on the ground in the local community to make sure were providing the accurate information. What we can do is ensure our personnel are trained and built relationships with local officials so they can get their questions answered in a timely and accurate way. I will be sure well work with colleagues on Disaster Assistance team to provide that guidance. I have to say im not totally satisfied with your answer. Youre welcome to come back to my office and respond in writing. I really want this is important. Subdivisions deserve certainty. Saying were going to train well, im sorry, im out of town but we can address this offline. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you, sir. Next we have the gentlelady from new york, miss clark. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank our Ranking Member and alternative chair or additional chair, miss torres and thank our Expert Witness for appearing before us today. I just want to say at the outset that i want to join in congressman roses request for a district by district contracting assessment and plan. I think that will be very important because were talking about Natural Disasters and were talking about them as if they are in the past when just last week we had a suite of tornadoes rip through the southern part of our nation. I believe, quite frankly, we need to be forward leaning with respect to this. Its really critical fema get its footing so again were able to move forward with the forecast of these events so were not in receipt are suspect, flat flatted dealing with these issues. Thats why i think natural interest action is to important because when you dont. It doesnt give a real view to how we can improve and what our improvement has been. You may be able to sit here and say i see improvement. The rest i was hit by Superstorm Sandy and people are still recovering. I want to drill down a little more about the code. In a sentence or two, can you describe what the National Interest action code is. Sure. Thank you for the question. Basically when any contract put in place, contracting officials have to put that information into the system, this federal database system. When you track it, do our analysis, we pull it from that nia code. When the nia code is closed, to be able to track that information, we did some Data Analysis after nia codes were closed to see what information we could get. We used the description field. Essential lip these codes allow you and the public for contracting activity for specific disasters. Absolutely, correct. From gaos perspective, how long should a neocode remain open after a disaster to accurately track contract obligations. Its from disaster to disaster depending how large the impact, how far it is and those kinds of things. We have said in the past they are open anywhere from two to four years. At least better than a year or less than a year. So the question becomes should we be categorizing. For instance, a Rural Community gets hit by a tornado. Youre dealing with less densely populated area than perhaps an urban area or even a suburban area. Or maybe looking at the regions, population density or assets in the area would be. Do you think sort of categorizing would then be. Do you think what time frames are applicable. Thats possible if the data is historically collected and analysis is done. As far as were aware, its not. Very well. I want to shift quickly to the question of debris removal contracts. A lot of debris removal. When i see these events occurring on a monthly basis i want to ask, regarding policy changes for debris removal operations, the new policy eliminated federal and state oversight of debris removal activities because of the policy changes local krars in florida and georgia, for instance, were able to overstate debris loads and overcharge federal government. This put more than 1. 5 billion of taxpayer dollars at risk. Can you explain this issue a bit more. Consolidated all the different items for publicist answer, thats the Grant Program to get reimbursed. Microphone on. Im sorry. So two points to make here that in 2016 fema consolidated all its different pieces of publicist answer Grant Program guidance into one guide. When they did that, debris removal, 100 pages at the specific debris removal and monitoring guidance available to local communities was cut out of, you know, that ultimate guide that was published in 2016. And so you have two problems. Then as you said at the same time the responsibilities for fema and the states to oversee local debris removal and monitoring activities went away. You had two at the same time that led to problems when our teams were out in florida and georgia doing our work. As i alluded to earlier, there is a need for fema to provide that more detailed information again. It is out there and some local communities know where to find it because they have used it before. The concern is that new communities or new officials, communities who havent worked before might not find it as readily. Furthermore the way the new publicist answer guidance has been consolidated, its not necessarily clear what certain rules and responsibilities might be. Very well. I thank you. Im sorry my time has run out. Id like to ask if you can go back and develop clear rules and guidance for monitoring debris removal operations, what would be done to comply with those recommendations, if you provide that to our chairman, that would be very helpful. Mr. Chairman, madam chairman, madam mr. Ranking member, i yield back. Thank you. Next well have the gentleman from texas, mr. Green. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and i thank all others that i should thank as well. Please allow me to thank all of you for what you do. I understand that its very difficult. I have a number of questions. First has to do with cdbgdr. Are there any recommendations that you have that would assist you in for us to help you and assist you in the use of the cdbgr funds, Community Development Disaster Relief funds. Any recommendations . Congressman green, thats outside my area of spopt and skp o responsibility but ill take that back to the Grant Programs. Thank you. As you know, were still waiting in texas for some of that funding to arrive, so i thought i would just take a shot and see if there was some possibility you might be able to give some assistance. Here is another one, in my city we hear the words, shelter in place. There are many persons who have no shelter to shelter in place. Churches will open their doors, and they will sometimes have some minor damages. They provide food, blankets. How does fema interact with the churches . How do we get that done so they can be properly compensated . So we do have an office of faithbased organizations, and its director kevin smith. Ill be glad to talk with him and perhaps he might be able to follow up with you and provide you information on how we interact with faithbased organizations. Do you contract with any of the churches for shelter . I know that the municipalities will usually provide some places for shelter. In houston we have the astrodome, and we have other facilities. Im sorry, congressman, thats outside my area of knowledge but well be sure to follow up in writing with information about that. Let me just continue outside your area for a few more. Lets talk for just a moment about the 20,000 pallets of water in puerto rico. I went down there. 20,000 pallets of bottled water that did not go used timely. Can you tell me anything about th that . So my understanding is that the contractor distributed water when they were supposed to dispose of it. Some of it was past its expiration date. I believe we terminated and wrote to them regarding their noncompliance with the contract that we let for disposal of water bottles, plastic caps, and palle pallets. Miss mack, do you have anything that you would add . This issue really comes down to understanding what the requirements are, and thats in the challenge we also found fema has faced in its acquisition planning process. If you dont if you cant define what you really need, how much you need and those kind of things, thats a problem, because it requires more time for contracting officials. They might award initial contract, and then they might have to follow up with several other contracts. So we have also asked that they really look at the acquisition planning process in terms of defining requirements. Quickly, probably outside your area of expertise, but what percentage of your contracts are awarded to minorities and women . That is in my area of expertise. I dont know the number but will follow up in writing with that. Thats a very important thing for you to do. If you would, id like to also get some sense of the number that number of persons that are from the impacted area. As you know in puerto rico, there was a big complaint, significant complaint, that people from the area were not being utilized. People were coming in from the mainland to Service People on the island. So it would be of great benefit to know these things. How am i assured ill hear from you . Who will be contacting me . Our legislative Affairs Division will follow up with this information. And if they do not, am i at liberty to call you . Yes. Okay. A final question, mr. Chairman, if i may. I just want to ask one more. Timely payment of contractors, small contractors. I get complaints from contractors who are telling me that they are not being paid timely. I understand that you no longer handle debris. You stop contracting that, the municipalities do it. Can you provide any degree of oversight . Maybe i should have miss mack respond. Such that these contractors would be paid timely . We certainly can provide guidance to state and local partners about timely payment and our expectations regarding how they exercise their responsibility under Grant Programs. Our disaster Enforcement Team can respond to that. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Lets see, well quickly try to go through maybe one or two questions. I just had a very important question that has been considering me since i was brought to my attention. D d d dhs, oig issued a report in march of 2019 indicating that fema unnecessarily shared the personally identifiable information and sensitive personally identifiable information of 2. 3 million of disaster survivors with a contractor, shared their personal information with this contractor. What safeguards have you put in place to ensure an incident like this doesnt happen again . This is bank records, Social Security numbers. I mean, the most personal information that we hold sacred, that has been exposed. I mean, over 2 million people. How does Something Like that happen . Thank you, chairman. So the contractor at issue administered the transitional sheltering Assistance Program for us, and we changed the Business Model. It used to be that survivors would check into transitional housing, a hotel, provide their credit card, and we would reimburse the survivor for those expenses. We changed the Business Model such that we now have the contractor pay hotels directly but we didnt turn off the sharing of the information. So upon learning that that data was still being transmitted to the contractor, who before the Business Model changed fully authorized to receive that information in administration of the program. We stopped sharing the data. We purged it from their systems. We have no evidence that that data in their systems was at any time breached. We have no evidence that any survivor has suffered Identity Theft or loss because of that sharing. Did you did you did you let them know this has happened . We are working through evaluating the options regarding the communication with the survivors. Evaluating . Evaluating . I think you need to get to the task at hand. Evaluating . What i said was evaluating what well offer to them and how well communicate with them regarding the oversharing of data. I think this needs to be expedited. I hear you loud and clear, mr. Chairman. You know, i mean, how do you know peoples identities havent been stolen. We have no evidence that they have been, but you dont have any evidence that they havent. You havent on either side, right, and you have no evidence that they havent been, correct . Correct. So let me oig, please, i know. So since we made the discovery, and it was our staff who meeting with both fema meeting with fema initially, looking at the records they had on survivors, it was our staff who realized there was personally identifiable information that was not required for the administration of the program. Our staff then met with the contractor and verified that, yes, the contractor had received that unnecessary pii. So as to moving forward, our recommendations are twofold. One, clean up the incident at hand and take the steps necessary. Hes right about the steps fema has initiated to assess essentially the extent of the damage. Its true that theres been no evidence that pii has gotten past the contractor out into the public or what have you. The concern is when from our understanding and information shared with us, the contractor only kept basically the past 30 days worth of information on its system that would have shown any vulnerabilities. Prior to that we dont know. We dont know if their system perhaps was infiltrated and if that information went to anywhere. So that is of a concern. But im sure fema remains diligent in addressing it. The other issue is making sure this doesnt happen again. I hope so. Our recommendation. So we are reviewing all of our data sharing agreements with all of our programs that share Sensitive Information and the contractors with whom that information is shared so that we make sure the Cyber Security safeguards are in place and data sharing agreements are in place to protect the information. We know that survivors not only expect us to deliver the care that they need after a disaster but they expect us to protect their information as well. I hope i hope that fema has the urgency that i feel that this needs to be rectified. You know, youre being kind of, you know, matter of fact about it. This is serious. This is frightening. Lend me your Social Security number and your bank records for me to hold onto. Let me just hold it. We agree with you with the seriousness of it and agree on the urgency. Thats 2. 3 million peoples information. I agree. Its absolutely absolutely unacceptable. Im sorry ive gone over but i felt that had to be borne out. No . No . Quickly. I was troubled by your comment that you dont see systemic problems. I think or your question about what are systemic questions exist. I want to speak specifically to a systemic problem i see, which is the contracting workforce. I appreciate miss macks comments about needing an indepth study for Workforce Needs. You said in your Opening Statement there were gains made in you were contracting workfor workforce. But based on the information youre a third under staffed and youve lost staff sichbs 2018. I appreciate that you need the indepth study. When can we expect to see the indepth study. Let me be clear, in response to the question about cancellation of nonperformance of contracts representing a systemic problem, i dont know if it does. That does not mean i dont see systemic opportunities to improve our contracting process, its what weve been doing. I was simple citing the four terminations for nonperformance. It is a challenge to recruit and retain 1102 Contracting Specialists in the federal government. I apologize. The question was when can we expect to see the study . I believe the i believe the completion date that we estimated to the gao recommendation was in august, but ill fog up with a more specific date. Sorry, i just dont remember the exact date. Weve already committed to a date and well provide that to you. Youre reupping that commitment. Absolutely. And im sorry i dont remember the date. I yield my time. Thank you, madam chair. I would like to ask unanimous consent for the senator for a new economys report on the federal contracting in the post disaster period be entered into the record. Assuming no objections, without objections, so ordered. Id like to thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony and the members for their questions. The members of the committee may have additional questions for the witnesses, and we ask that you respond expeditiously in writing to those questions. Without objection, the Committee Records shall be kept open for 10 days. Hearing no further business, this subcommittee stands adjourned. Taupe here on cspan, a look back at dday invasion. Youll hear about the book n first wave dday warriors who led the way to victory in world war ii. We talked with me at the National Dday memorial in west virginia. Here is a portion of what youll see tonight at 8 00 eastern. This one community here, bedford, virginia, more lives, sacrificed more than anywhere else in america on dday june 4 died in the first wave of omaha beach. Per capita, bedford, virginia, gave more than any other allied community on dday. Thats why the National Dday memorial is here and im very happy to be sitting right in front of it. Its interesting. Ive always heard bedford gave more than any other american town but you said more than any other allied community. Yes. Thats what the National Dday community claims. Thats true. On dday company a from 1167th infantry regime men, a National Guard unit, guys from the community joined in the 1930s. They were weekend warriors. They never envisioned in 1937, 38 that by 1944 they would be in the very first wave and the most critical assault in u. S. History. So out of company a, there were 180 guys that landed on omaha beach and 102 of them, we believe, were killed in about half an hour. Of the 102, 19 were killed from bedford, virginia, but there were 34 guys still in company a on dday from this community here who fought on june the 6th, 1944. Your book focuses on individual stories, personal stories of that first wave of soldiers, airmen and marines. You write early on the book 12 15 june 6, 1944, the most important day of the 20th century, the First Americans had arrived in france. Why do you think dday was the most important day of the 20th century . Because it led to a europe that you see today. It led to the restoration of civilization, human rights, of democracy, of peace in western europe. It was the foundation of atlantaism, most important relationship in history and led to the freedom of millions and millions of europeans in western europe. 19 million civilians died in europe in world war ii. When americans and british and french and canadians landed on dday june 6, 1944, it gave countless millions hope that bashari barbarism, naziism, terrible genocide and oppression would end. You can watch the entire conversation with historian alex kershaw tonight at 8 00 eastern along with Mary Louise Roberts on her back dday through french eyes, normandy 1944 which looks at the invasions impact and aftermath to france. Dday tonight on cspan 3. There has been an discussion about appearance before congress. Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. It contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully and the work speaks for itself. The report