Transcripts For CSPAN2 Extreme Weather Preparedness 20140826

Weather appears to be the new norm. Events like superstorm saturday which came to my shores and our shears in the mid atlantic a year or so ago, recent wildfires in ore parts of the country other parts of the country, dangerous tornadoes, historic droughts. They may well be just the tip of the iceberg of whats to come. And even today the east coast is preparing for yet another snowstorm while the west coast is experiencing a historic drought. And increased fire danger with no end in sight. I have a friend of mine who is from australia, and he tells me theyve had the hottest weather in their history, so go figure. Its just sort of a crazy world that we live in right now. For years, ive been working with a number of my colleagues, our colleagues to address the root causes and unfolding effects of what i believe is one of the Biggest Challenges of our generation. Thats Climate Change. According to the u. S. Global change research program, extreme weather events have increased in frequency over the last 50 years and are expected to become even more common, intense and costly. But let me just make a point and underline this if i could. Todays hearing is not intended to hash out climate science. Thats not what were trying to do. Instead, its about trying to find common ground. And as our country debates how to address the our changing climate and the extreme weather, our witnesses will deliver to us a clear message and that is, put simply, the increase in frequency and intensity of those extreme weather events are costing our country a boatload of money. And not just a cost thats measured in lives that are impacted, but in economic and financial costs as well. For example, the damage from a storm still fresh in many of our minds, Superstorm Sandy which impacted, again, my home state is estimated to have cost our economy 75 billion. Think about that, 75 billion in financial damages. Thats enough to run a number of departments of our federal government and have money left over. Thats just one storm. Were also hearing reports about the devastating effects of californias severe drought and how its impacting the wildfire season in that state and across the west. Not only are wildfires growing in frequency and severity, but were now seeing wildfire conditions in winter and spring, well beyond the traditional wildfire seasons of summer and early fall. These fires are enormously expensive to fight and recover from, and they pose be serious threats to to lives and property, damaging homes and businesses alike. According to a 2013 report by Insurance Company [inaudible] the nearly 40 wildfires last year of the United States cost our economy over a billion dollars. These economic damages can deliver a devastating blow to many local commitments, to states as well as to our own federal government. Fema, federal Emergency Management agency, alone has obligated, im told, over 80 billion in federal assistance for disasters declared in fiscal years 2004 through 2011. 80 billion. However, the cost to the federal government is not just limited to Disaster Relief. As an insurer of both property and crops, the Government Faces additional significant fiscal exposure. For example, since the creation of National Flood Insurance Program in 1968 through december 20 and, femas debt from insurance payments to that program have totaled approximately 24 billion. And even before Superstorm Sandy, total debt from payments through the national Insurance Program was almost 18 billion. The cost of these weather events keep going up at a time when were trying to bring our Government Spending down. That is one of the reasons why for the first time the gao, the Government Accountability office, last year listed Climate Change as one of the biggest fiscal risks facing our country in its high risk list report. Just to remind us all, every two years, beginning of every congress, gao gives us a high risk list. We use that as our to do list on this committee to get better results for less money, and were thankful for that to do list. But in response to this historic gao announcement, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman darrell issa stated, and this is a quote the comptroller general has made it very clear that weve not prepared properly, that the federal government has a financial risk that we have not properly mitigated. He said i think its a wakeup call to us all. I couldnt agree more. Gaos report is a call to action for both congress and the administration, warning us that our country must start thinking now about how to better prepare and adapt to a new climate reality. Today our witness, a witness from gao will further detail these Financial Risks to our communities, to our taxpayers and, hopefully, offer some comments and solutions that my colleagues and i can work to see implemented. Fortunately, this administration along with a number of state and local governments are starting to focus their efforts on preparing for the very real threats posed by extreme weather events and Climate Change. Last fall president obama issued an executive order on climate preparedness that incentivizes investments in more robust roads n buildings that may be more expensive but can hold up during more intense storms. I commend the president s approach and believe its very timely as rebuilding efforts continue from Superstorm Sandy and other recent Natural Disasters. I look forward to hearing more about the president s efforts, efforts by states like delaware and a bunch of other states to do a better job protecting our communities and our taxpayer dollars from these challenges. As we continue to debate how to reduce our deficits, i believe we cant afford to ignore the impacts these weather events are having. Low extra spending can go a long way. I believe this is a perfect example of that very wise maxim i used to hear from my grandmother all the time; an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Thanks again to our witnesses for being here. Were eager ohare your testimony. With that to hear your testimony. Im going to turn over not to our Ranking Member, senator mccain, but our acting Ranking Member senator johnson from thoughts that youd like to. Delighted youre here. Of course im mindful the reason im sitting in this chair is because dr. Coburn is not here. Hes in our thoughts and prayers. Sure is. Want to thank you, thank our witnesses, and looking forward to the testimony. The questions im going to be looking to have answered is, first and foremost, since ive been here and been looking into this issue, were really declaring federal disaster declarations much more frequent basis. Now, is that because we really have, you know, a higher instance of the types of disasters that require that, or are we just too quick to declare those disasters . Im afraid that if we have an overreliance on the federal government help, is that restraining the mitigation . The new word im hearing, resilience, in terms of, you know, how we prepare. Are we being penny wise and pound foolish by not spending the money up front to mitigate and, again, the overreliance on federal help when these disasters hit. Everybodys expecting the federal government to come in and pay for things as opposed to actually mitigating these risks ahead of time. And so from my standpoint coming from the private sector, i certainly understand that a private Insurance Market really is very, provides very strong discipline in terms of mitigating risk. You know, whether its fire risk in a plant. Basically, insurers come in there and say, listen, if you put in sprinkler heads every six feet apart versus 24 feet apart, youre going to mitigate that risk and lower your insurance price. So i really havent experienced that, the private sector Insurance Market. Is it is a very goodies palin to those discipline to those Risk Mitigation efforts, and those are the kinds of questions im asking in terms of how can we certainly utilize the government in the most efficient way. As you said, mr. Chairman, we dont have the money to do all these things. So, again, look forward to the testimony. Senator johnson, thanks, thanks so much. Been joined by a fellow from a little state, alaska [laughter] little state with a big population and a couple of great senators. There we go. Mark, would you like to say a word or two . A state with a big punch. But i would say at home in alaska i think last week we had green grass, so things are definitely changing. First, mr. Chairman, if i could just id like to read a statement for the record, and if thats okay, and i apologize, i wont be able to stay, but i want to make sure. This is a fairly important issue especially when you talk about extreme weather events and how to prepare for them. But first let me say, mr. Chairman, i want to thank you, and i appreciate you holding this hearing to examine what i consider the true cost of not being rared for impacts of extreme weather. Were about to feel it. As i drove in today, i drove across salt because theyre waiting for snow to fall to melt it. In alaska that would be unheard of, but thats, you know, the way it works. Now, the weather conditions will also change, and im sure well have you are Power Outages and many other things. We understand very extreme conditions in alaska. A normal winter day in fairbanks will get to below zero many times. And in some cases that would be extreme down in the lower 48, but not alaska. Alaska truly is on the front lines in terms of changing crime, the effects of extreme weather and existing challenges facing our communities in funding and including retreating sealines, rapidly e voiding shorelines, thawing perm a frost, impact on our economy on many different levels. This puts many communities at risk throughout our state. The army corps of engineers and the gao have both released reports identifying alaska villages imminently threatened by erosion. Many of these villages have experienced incredible extreme weather. Thirtyplus villages at risk of falling into the ocean or disappearing totally. Flooding wiped out a village called galena. We read about a lot of issues in the lower 48, we had a whole village wiped out by flooding and no place to evacuate. The closest place was 270 miles away. All had to be done by air in order to move these people out quickly, and now theyre able to rebuild in a very short time, and the winter sent in, and it was also very difficult. I know people get nervous. They want to debate the science. Im telling you, Climate Change is occurring. [laughter] my state is the example of it, of what the impacts are. And it is extreme. And we are seeing the impacts economically and from all levels. Our state has the longest coastline in the United States. Its got incredible beauty, but also economic value and has enormous absolutely vulnerabilities. Alaskas unique position as an arctic state presents a variety of advantages to leverage the challenges to overcome this extreme issue. You know, i have to tell you alaska is clearly on the front line with dealing with the issue of Climate Change. We have our own task force set up. We have been active in it. We have focused on what we can do to mitigate the issues and these extreme changes in weather patterns that are impacting us on a daytoday basis in alaska. Let me say that, you know, as the president s Climate Action plan moves forward and the state, local, tribal Leaders Task Force begins to to develop recommendations, im confident investing in mitigation is the right decision. We always spend the time, mr. Chairman, always after the fact. Picking up the pieces, and the costs are huge. You know . We had a hearing in alaska through the subcommittee that i chair here with fema, and the corps, talking about what we can do before these situations. We know theyre going to happen. We have 30some villages on the list. We know theyre going to fall into the ocean. We can do something now, or we can wait until something bad happens, and were going to be calling fema, and femas going to be writing checks. We can do this in a much better way. I know, mr. Mr. Chairman, you invited individual Mike Williams sr. Whos an iditarod musher but also an incredible leader who was going to be on the panel, but i know he could not attend, and if i could just ask the committee to insert his comments and his testimony into the record, if thats okay. Without objection. Let me just end and just say, mr. Chairman, as the chair of the subcommittee on Emergency Management that deals with Disaster Relief, emergency preparedness, first responders, mitigation in this committee, weve had several hearings on these issues. Ive sat here with insurance folks that talk about how theyre adjusting their risk analysis, how theyre making sure that theyre now seeing more Severe Weather patterns. They werent here to debate the science. What they were here to debate was risks are greater. Times are changing. Theyre more compacted and severe, so, therefore, the risk analysis goes into play and, therefore, the rates go up. I know this as the owner of commercial property because theyre analyzing the risk. I get that. But there is a risk that everyone is paying today for the lack of action in regards to mitigating these situations. So is i think and i want to, again, say to the chairman thank you for holding this hearing. Its a hard issue to grapple with because there are political views on Climate Change, but thats not the issue. The issue is, it is happening. We can argue over it all we want, but in my state we see it every single day. We have disaster after disaster, we have huge costs that are associated with it. And even though were far away, 5,000 miles away, small villages who literally their buildings and houses are falling into the ocean. This is not a hypothetical situation or theory, its real. So i really appreciate the work youre doing here, and i hope the committee continues to talk about this. I know and i agree that we cant bear all the costs. Thats just reality. But how we manage it from everything from our building codes all the way up to what we do here on the federal level is critical to understand how were going to manage this so we dont have these huge costs borne by the private sector, individuals or the government. Thank you very much. Were just glad that you could join, senator johnson and me. Thanks so much for coming, for your comments. Ron, when senator begich was speaking, i was reminded, of all people, senator mike enzi from wyoming. And i often times cite him. He may be here later today. He has his 80 20 rule that is one of his guiding principles, and the 80 20 rule is we agree on 80 of the stuff here in congress, we disagree on maybe 20 , lets just focus on the 80 we agree on. And today i think were going to focus on the 80 that we can agree on and to help chart a path for not just the congress, but for our country. One of the people whos not here yet, hell probably be here in a little bit, is the senator from arkansas, mark pryor. And they have a saying in arkansas whenever you see a friend and mark pryors said this to me about a million times, and hell say, hey, man. And your name is hayman. [laughter] and i was just hoping mark would get here so he could introduce you. Hey, man. But david heyman, were happy to see you, assistant secretary for policy at the department of Homeland Security. Mr. Heyman has the office that is responsible for strengthening our nations Homeland Security by developing programming, planning and strategies. Caitlin durkovich, assistant secretary for Infrastructure Protection at the department of Homeland Security. In this role she leads the departments efforts to strengthen the Public Private partnerships and coordinate programs to protect the nations Critical Infrastructure, assess and hit gate risk, build resill januaries and resilience and strengthen Incident Response and recoveries. Nice to see you again, welcome. And last i last i but not least, mark gaffigan. Government accountability offices environmental team, responsible for gaos assessments of federal efforts to manage our nations land and water resources, protect the environment, ensure food safety, manage agricultural programs, end sure a reliable and environmentallysound Energy Policy and address the u. S. National security and cleanup. Thats a lot to do for one person. Each of you will have about five minutes to read your opening statement. If you run a little bit over that, thats okay. If you go way over that, well have to rein you in. Full content of your written statement will be included in the record, and with that, were going to recognize mr. Heyman also known as, hey, man. [laughter] thank you. Quick aside, senator pryor has said that to me for now over 30 years [laughter] as i served as his Vice President when he was a Student Government leader in my high school. His political career [laughter] has gone, has skyrocketed because of my service to him. [laughter] thank you, chairman carper this story just keeps getting better. [laughter] thank you, chairman carper, senator johnson and distinguished members of the committee, and my best wishes to senator coburn and his family. Its my pleasure to be here this morning to discuss the impact of extreme weather and what the department of Homeland Security is doing to improve the preparedness and resilience of our communities and nation. This represents one of the most significant areas where we can all agree, i think. Investment today will help us save billions in the future. Over the past decade, an unprecedented number of weatherrelated disasters, hurricanes, floods, droughts, wildfires, crop freezes and winter storms have hit the United States leaving devastated communities and billions of dollars of damage in their wake. In 2011 we experienced 14 natural catastrophes exceeding a billion dollars in cost each. Thats a record number. We had a record 98 president iallydeclared disasters. In 2012 we faced Hurricane Sandy can, the large atlantic hurricane on record and the second costliest to the nation damaging or destroying more than 300,000 homes in thy, 72,000 in in new york, 72,000 in new jersey and costing billions in damage. According to the Worlds Largest risk insurer, weatherrelated catastrophes over the past three decades have hit north america much harder than the rest of the world. Total economic losses in the United States totaled approximately 1. 15 trillion over the last 30 be years. Without a concerted effort, National Resilience effort, the trend is likely to continue. Department of Homeland Security is responsible for providing the coordinated, comprehensive federal response in the event of a terrorist attack, Natural Disaster or other large scale emergency while working with state and federal local, tribal, territorial and private sector partners so we can insure swift and effective recovery. Over the past several years, we have made a senate shift in our thinking and in our practice of preparing for and mitigating against and responding to disasters. And i can summarize that in one word resilience. Resilience is the ability to anticipate, prepare for and adapt to changing conditions and withstand, respond to and rapidly recover from disrunses. In disruptions n. May of 2009, president obama took a significant be step towards facilitating and institutionalizing National Resilience when he merged the Homeland Security council and national Security Council into a single structure and created a resilient direct rate within the national Security Council. This directorate manages oil and operates alongside the counterterrorism direct rate. This directorate. This was called out for the first time in the president s National Security strategy. Dhs affirmed this in 2010 promoting insurance of resilience to disasters as one of the departments Core Missions and responsibilities. But the question is how do you create and foster resilience . Establishing the concept of resilience as doctrine is an essential first step, but it is only one piece of proactively preparing for potential disasters and readily responding to a situation as it occurs. Across the department from fema to the nppd to science and technology, we work with a wide array of government, private and nonprofit, faithbased organizations to build and foster resilience. Not as a concept, but as an applied reality. Fema is leaving the implementation of the National Readiness system. My colleague here today will discuss our Critical Infrastructure security and resilience programs, and in my office, the office of policy, we coordinate policy across the department and are working to create the framework that gives us a coheerptd baseline. Coherent baseline. Id like to share one example of some of the important work were doing. Were creating a Program Based on the energy star concept which you probably are familiar with for appliances in your own home. In this case, it will help insure that homes will be built to voluntary standards, stronger standards that will incur far less damage by disasters, protecting lives, livelihoods and helping communities respond to and recover to disasters much more quickly. Ultimately, dhs aims to extend the resilient star program into Critical Infrastructure. Helping to recapitalize the built environment across america in the long term, one home, one building, one bridge at a time. Our investments in resilience will pay significant dividends for the country. It is efficient, and it is Cost Effective. Homeland security in the end is simply not about government action; rather, its also about collective strength of the entire country. It requires the participation of individuals, commitments, the private sector communities, the private sector, as well as state, local and the federal government to be truly effective. The departments ready. Gov web site serves as a resource to businesses and commitments so they can stay informed and take appropriate prepared measures. This is, as i said, a shared responsibility that requires that we all Work Together to martial all the resources to to wis stand whatever threats and hazards we must face. In the end, it will insure the safety and security for all of us. I look forward to your questions. Thank you. Mr. Heyman, thank you very much. Ms. Durkovich, please please. Thank you, chairman carper, senator johnson and distinguished members of the committee. I, too, extend my thoughts and prayers to senator coburn and his family. It is a pleasure to appear before you today to discuss the departments efforts to enhance the resilience of the nations Critical Infrastructure to extreme weather. Our daily life, Economic Vitality and National Security depend on Critical Infrastructure. The infrastructure provides essential services and functions, but it is easily taken for granted. Often it is only when an incident occurs and service is disrupted that attention is drawn to the importance of the infrastructure itself. Threats to our Critical Infrastructure are wide ranging including aging and failing components, cyber threats, acts of terrorism and Climate Change and extreme weather. The cob intentions of these consequences to the public and private sectors can be seen in events over the last decade; hurricanes katrina and sandy, the tornadoes in the midwest, wildfires and flooding across the western states, the california drought, the extreme cold in the northwest all demonstrate how weather can disrupt the availability of lifeline functions and other critical services. Just as terrorist attacks threaten our communities, extreme weather disrupts the security of our nation. Extremewet strains our resources, diverts attention from counterterrorism meds, aggravate methods and destabilizes lifelines on which we rely. Higher temperatures and more intense storms can cause inefficient Infrastructure Operations and damage that can result in cascading effects across our communities. Hurricane sandy is a vivid example of the impact extreme weather can have on critical structure and demonstrates how interdependencies can hag anify be impacts and delay restoration. Additionally, the increasing role of cyber and Communication Networks creates new vulnerabilities and opportunities for disruption. Two years ago high temperatures and high demand tripped a transformer and transmission line in yuma, arizona, starting a chain of events that shut down the Nuclear Power plant, disabling automated switching is systems leading to a large scale power outage across the entire san diego distribution system. Strides have been made to address such vulnerabilities, but additional progress is needed to protect our interrelated systems. The nation must take a longterm perspective and account for evolving threats and hazards including those caused by extreme weather that are linked to changes in climate, especially with regards to building resilience for Critical Infrastructure built infrastructure has a tenyear design build phase and a life span of 50 years or more and is expected to operate under conditions we sometimes cant imagine. As a result, it is prudent to incorporate resill yens into system design, promote mitigation and to empower owners and operators with decisionmaking tools rather or than to rebuild or redesign infrastructure after incidents occur. To achieve infrastructure resilience, owners and operators must be able to minimize the disruption to essential Services Provided to our communities, regardless of the threat. And when a disruption occurs, insure essential functions are brought back the full operations as quickly as possible. One year ago today president obama issued president ial policy directive 21, Critical Infrastructure security and resilience and executive recorder 16366. Ppd21 directed dhs to develop an update to the national Infrastructure Protection plan or the nip which was released in 2013. It envisions a nation in which Critical Infrastructure remains secure and resilient. Continue to be to be delivereds in the face of incidents, and commitments and businesses adapt communities and businesses adapt and rapidly recover from potential disruptions. The office of Infrastructure Protection is leveraging our core capabilities such as information sharing, capacity development, Vulnerability Assessments and Situational Awareness to support owners and operators efforts to strengthen resilience to extreme weather. If as part of the task force, we worked to develop guidelines which are sound investment principles to guide federal and Infrastructure Investment as we modernize and adapt to infrastructure. Simple things such as consistent application of comprehensive, sciencebased data and a regional crossjurisdictional focus for selecting projects. Additionally, i cochair the new Resilience Work Group with the department of energy under the White House Council on climate preparedness and resilience. Through this working group we are coordinating interagency efforts on resilience for the nations infrastructure. The working group is studying infrastructures most vulnerable to climate impacts throughout the United States and identifying riskbased mitigation and adoption strategies. This will inform and aid the Critical Infrastructure community with planning and Decision Making regarding climate preparedness and resilience. Ip also works with state and local partners through the regional resill yen i i Assessment Program to examine a particular region or a municipalitys dependence on key lifeline sectors and to mitigate the hazards that could disrupt these complex ecosystems. This year we are partnering with the state of maine for the portland metropolitan area. In closing, by increasing the resilience of our Critical Infrastructure in our communities, we are better prepared as a nation to the myriad of threats and hazards we face. Leveraging the Partnership Framework we have established, ip will continue to work with owners and operators of Critical Infrastructure to understand the impact of extreme weather and to take steps to enhance resilience. Thank you very much, and i look forward to answering your questions. Ms. Durkovich, i thank you so much for your testimony. Stick around, well have some questions. [laughter] mr. Gaffigan, very nice to see you. Please proceed. Senator carper, good to see you again, senator johnson. Thank you for inviting me here. Let me also extend best wishes to senator coburn and his family. I had the fortune to attend one of his first hearings when he was on the hill, and he told us afterwards he was going to do some oversight, and i think hes been following through. Hes announced that hes going to step down at the end of the year. And while he has some Health Challenges right now, he said that has nothing to do with those, its just a personal decision he and his family have made. But i have said to him, well, youre still on the payroll for another, you know, ten and a half months, so i know you want to finish strong. And were going to make sure that you do, and hes determined to. Plenty more oversight to come. Yeah, great. I want to make three points. First, theres a lot at stake. Weve all talked about some of the numbers in your opening statement. There are senate costs from extreme significant costs from extreme weather not only to the federal government, but also to the state, local, tribal governments, businesses, farmers, individuals. In short, everyone. Second, there is uncertainty about the specific risks we might face from extreme weather and how we can adapt to those changes and manage those risks. Complicating this uncertainty is that the risk faced and the appropriate add adaptation is gg to be particular to the situations and the locations of those facing the risk. To borrow from the phrase all politics is local, all adaptation is local. Third thing, given the challenge Going Forward for everyone facing these risks, the chang is to strive challenge is to strive for the best, most updated Information Available to help inform specific preparation, resilience, adaptation so that investment is most effective. And as weve explained, funds are tight. So let me illustrate whats at stake and the sort of challenges in four areas that are mar to the federal government. Particular to the federal government. First, the federal government has a great deal at stake as insurer of property and crops. Property coverage of other 1. 2 trillion in 2012 while Crop Insurance covers 120 billion in crops. Thats a fourfold increase since 2003. However, the Flood Insurance program has a debt of 24 billion, as you pointed out. And the nations Crop Insurance annual costs have more than doubles from 3. 4 billion in 2001 to 7. 6 billion in 2012. Back in march of 2007, gao did a study and found that both of these programs exposure to weatherrelated losses had grown substantially and that fema and usda had done little to develop the information necessary to understand what those risks were. They have since developed a report. Now, those reports, usda released their report in 2009, the Flood Insurance Program Released their report in 201. They recognized the potential risks, they recognized the uncertainty, but its still unclear what action these programs are going to take in the future, and thatll have a lot to say for the financial sol vep city of these programs Going Forward. But also in 2010 Congress Passed the Flood Insurance reform act which required the use of information on coastal erosion areas, future sea levels and intensity of hurricanes to update its flood maps. Implementation of this will be key in making changes to that program. A principled compromise that actually makes progress toward reducing this unfunded liability and is not cruel or heartless with respect to people whose homes, whose businesses are at risk. See, i know how closely weve been following what the senate has done, but if any of you, mr. Gaffigan, if any of you have any advice for us as to how to proceed and what might be principles, some of the elements of a principled compromise, id welcome hearing those. And my guess is that were going to have the opportunity later this year to work more closely with you to say and with the administration. The president s not crazy about this bill that the senate has passed, as you know. Theres an opportunity for the administration to weigh in and be part of the solution. Any thoughts you have on that . Um, just very quickly and, again, the Flood Insurance is not necessarily in my i have a lot of things i have a lot of things, but not that one. I think its a tradeoff between the affordability of the program and the individuals who have to pay the premiums. I mean, at the end of the day, someone has got to pay for this, and its a question of the balance between the taxpayer and the individualing businesses, homeowners, those who own the Flood Insurance. I think some of the things talked about in biggertwaters building in consideration of what the risks are Going Forward, trying to build in some resiliency Going Forward in that program would help minimize the risks so were not having to pay the higher premiums because we dont anticipate the higher risk down the road. I think thats where the area of compromise is probably best sought. Okay. Ms. Durkovich, mr. Heyman, anything you want to mention on that before we go to another question . You dont have to. If you have something you want to say, go ahead. [inaudible] i dont think your mics on. Sorry. Fema has, actually, been working closely with both house and senate on this. This is, obviously, a concern that we hear about, and i know that there are possibly going to be amendments could down the ro. Right now our authority is only to complete a study on affordability, we have no authority to address the affordability of, actually, Flood Insurance. But we are happy to work with you to try and help think this through. Im going to come back to mark after my next question. This deals prioritizing risks, and i think in your testimony you may have mentioned three or four areas where the government could limit its fiscal exposure when it comes to Climate Change and to extreme weather events. And within those three or four areas, which stands out to you for maybe the biggest fiscal concern . Let me just add to that, are there high risk areas, maybe a higher priority for my colleagues and me here in the college. You mentioned the Flood Insurance program. That is one in terms of fiscal risk, and i think its hard to pick one thats more significant than others. I just touched on four areas. There are a lot of other potential impacts to the federal government. We think the Disaster Assistance program, the aid program, clash 60 billion 60 billion for one storm is the amount that congress authorized for Superstorm Sandy. That stands out. Right now as an owner of infrastructure, the agencies are trying to assess whats at risk. Dod has at least 30 major facilities that are in coastal areas that are vulnerable to flood. They have to think about dry docks, making sure those are not exposed. So i think its hard to pick a most important out after all those out of all of those. All right. A question for you, mr. Heyman or ms. Durkovich or both. And, mr. Gaffigans testimony he mentioned, as i recall, that infrastructure Decision Makers havent necessarily incorporated a potential Climate Change impacts in planning for roads, this planning for bridges and in landing for Waste Management systems because they face challenges identifying and obtaining availability Climate Change best suited for their locations and projects. Could one or both of you take a minute or two and just talk about how your agency is addressing this concern . In particular, i would like to hear how your agency is coordinating with other agencies to make sure that local planners have the best data possible. Especially related to Superstorm Sandy rebuilding efforts. Thank you very much for that question. Our unique role within the office of Infrastructure Protection, we both have the ability to convene and coordinate with owners and operators, but with other members of the federal interagency. Let me speak to the latter, that latter point first. Two topics related to that. First is i was in front of you a few months ago talking about federal facility security, and i happen to chair a group called the Interagency Security Committee that works with 53 different departments and agencies to set standards related to Federal Building safety and security. Climate change is an issue that this Interagency Security Committee is addressing and is working to incorporate it into its design basis threat scenarios which are over three dozen is their owes is scenarios that Federal Buildings think about when incorporating protective and mitigation measures to, again, insure the safety and security of those facilities. So this is a group of physical Security Officers who are looking at how we address Climate Change when it comes to the over 300,000 federal facilities that are in the area. We are dependent, though, as a federal interagency on other lifeline sectors. And the office of Infrastructure Protection we have the ability to convene our 16 sectors and partners both on the government side, but also on the private sector side to talk about what they are doing to raise awareness, to look at best practices, to identify best practices, to help share those best practices, to understand where the gaps are and to look at the comparative advantage that the federal government has and to think through what are some of the capabilities that we can bring to bear to help this effort. And then just to speak be briefly to work speak briefly to the work that were doing within the infrastructure resilience working group, this is, again, a unique opportunity to look across the federal interagency and to look at the frames that are available to state and local communities, to the ownerOperator Community and to, again, understand whats working, where the gaps are, where we need to remove those barriers so that we can enable planning that we can bring consistent comprehensive data to our partners so they can bib begin to in they can begin to incorporate it into their planning. So a lot going on on this front that i think we can continue to harnesses. All right. Before i yield to senator johnson, mr. Heyman, do you want to add to anything about that . Sure, thank you. We work very closely with states and communities to assess their, to help them assess their, the threats and hazards and risks that they face. That is called the threat hazard identification and risk assessment. Every states required to do this. Fema has a policy of making the best available day a available. So that is to say, whatever is so the top line, Scientific Data thats available, fema tries to facilitate it to the best of their ability. Two years ago there were only 15 states that had Climate Action plans. Today theres 36 that have Climate Action plans, theyre incorporating the best data and their risk assessments to develop an action plan to better prepare their communities. Thanks. Thanks so much. Senator johnson. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Im a big fan of a fellow named bjorn lomb ward who, you know, basically issues his report, i think it was called the copenhagen project, and i believe hes inherent of Climate Change. But hes also pretty good at prioritizing with limited resources where we should be spbding our dollars spending our dollars. I think my first set of questions is, you know, how do we do that . Are we doing it effectively and we be, for example, killing two birds with one stone . Ms. Durkovich, you talked about cybersecurity which brings to mind power grids which brings to mind the attack at the metcalf transmission station in, i believe, san jose, california. There are a number of things that could affect our infrastructure, you know . Obviously, Natural Disasters, weather disasters as well as, you know, man head terrorist attacks manmade terrorist attacks as well. Are we trying to combine these and take a look at that from the standpoint of trying to mitigate the problems . Our role within the office of Infrastructure Protection is to help openers and operators understand the range of threats and hazards they face. And as they look across their enterprise to manage risk, to provide them with infrastructure, with tools, with best practices so they can be both efficient and effective in application of how they go about managing these risks. Part of the reason that we have moved to a more allhazards focus within the department of Homeland Security and across the, across the Homeland Security enterprise is that we find as you work to adapt preventive measures and mitigative measures to a range of threats and hazards, they are applicable not only to just one particular hazard, but to many, to to many hazards. And so we work very closely with the owner and Operator Community to think through this. So let me touch briefly, for example, on the substation issue. So as we think about security but also incorporate Climate Change and extreme weather into that conversation, as owners and operators are looking to invest in upgrades and to modernize that infrastructure, as they make improvements related to security, we can also have conversations with them about whether these assets and these facilities are in floodprone areas, are in areas that are susceptible to sea rise. So as they start to make the multimillion dollar investments youre seeing to enhance security and resilience, were thinking about these things in parallel and in an integrated fashion and insuring that the money that is invested in these enhancements, in these mitigation measures is used effectively. But, again, our role is really to help them understand the range of threats and risks and to consider measures and options that allow an efficient and effective application of resources. Mr. Heyman, in terms of prioritization, are there lists being prepared . I mean, we talk about it, we talk about prioritization, but is there any product thats actually ever produced . There is. So the, the National Preparedness system has about five parts to it. One is to identify the risks that are available, two is to get a sense of where the gaps are looking at communities based upon what capabilities are required for preparedness, then to do the resources assessment and, ultimately, resourcing followed by training and exercising, and you do that cycle again. At the end of that exercise, there is a list of capabilities that are prioritized for communities, for states. Those states then apply for grants to fema based upon those, that gap analysis, and that becomes the basis for the next years preparedness planning and evaluation. And so thats a regular cycle thats done. We had the National Preparedness report is an annual report, and it was last released last year. Let me just talk a bit about prioritization as a concept because i think that everyone has said mitigations critically important, and i think thats right. There was a study done a few years ago by the Multihazard Mitigation Council which said a dollars worth of investment up front in mitigation led you on the back end to 4 back in your, in terms of return on your investment. And similarly, the Louisiana State university Hurricane Center evaluated what kind of benefit mitigation would have done in katrina, and they came back with a figure of 8 billion would have been saved. To how do we do that . So how do we do that . One way of doing that because the federal government doesnt own and operate most of the infrastructure, and it doesnt own and operate own the Residential Housing or the buildings that are out there is to try and incentivize and encourage raising standards as it pertains to the built environment. And the program i mentioned which were piloting in the rez can be cial residential environment this year provides a basis for trying to look at how we can do that on a broader scale across the infrastructure so that people are motivated and incentivized either through selfpreservation because their house will be the one standing or through other incentives whether its mortgage reductions or perhaps premium reductions in insurance. And so were looking at that, and i think thats something that this nation should take a serious look at. Well, lets talk, because youre using the word i wanted to get to next, incentivize. Where are those incentives best, where does it best come from . Where do they best come from . Private Insurance Market . Weve got, basically, a million different decisions being made or from some centralized entity like the federal government trying to do it with a onesizefitsall approach . So theres a number of Different Actors in this, in this world, you know . When you go to buy a house, there are the builders. Theyre going to build it to code plus standards. How do you get them engaged in that. One of the as were getting, going ahead with the pilot, what were seeing is that a lot of builders are interested in this because they see a heart attacked advantage. A marked advantage. So theres a benefit to being be labeled star. There are the, the Insurance Industry is interested in this because it saves them a whole lot of money on the back end with possible claims for damage, you know, if youre looking at the life cycle of a house every 40 years, and residential owners may see a benefit let me just stop though. Wouldnt the Insurance Industry itself have a vested interest to develop these standards, and wouldnt they if they developed them themselves in the private sector, wouldnt it be more effective than a governmentrun solution . So insure ors have looked at this insurers have looked at that. In fact, we are partnering with the insurance policy industry to try to develop this pilot project. And for, i think for various reasons possibly because theres so many different, you have a fractured Insurance Market, you have a number of different state players and all, i think that one of the benefits the federal government can bring is a National Perspective which is much, which is not something any individual Insurance Company can do. I just ask one more question . I dont want because i have a great deal of concern. If the federal government is the 800pound grill la and everybody in the gorilla and everybodys looking for the federal government to bail them out, is that a real disincentive to do the resiliency, do the mitigation efforts if the, well, if we have a big flood, we have a big hurricane, the feds going to be coming in there and covering our losses and then some. To what extent is that, are we witnessing that really throughout country . Well, youre not, unfortunately, witnessing that in many places. You have communities that are devastated that people have packed up their bags and left, and youre losing your tax base, youre losing your individual to attract individuals to come to your community, and the federal government cant help in that regard when people move their feet. So this is one of those issues that i think local governments or urban communities will probably take a good look at was if youre a Resilient Community sitting next to, in a zone which has a risk, people may want to be there because in the long run youre more secure and, frankly, the funds that you would have to the pay in rebuilding your community could be repaid to other priorities. Of course, thats the problem, isnt it . We need to raise the price for individuals that are building in very risky environments, correct . We dont want to continue to incentivize people to be building in areas that we know are going to to flood every year or get wiped out every ten years. And thats why its important to have the best available data so the people actually are cognizant of where theyre building or living or moving to. Fema has tried to get that as a basis for getting data out and, frankly, when we work with communities to do their threat hazard identification risk asment assessment, thats all, you know, why with your eyes wide open looking at what the highest risks are is and then asking if theres a way we can partner together to reduce those risks. Okay, thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I, i wish we had time for another round of questions. Weve just learned that a series of votes starts at 11 30, and i want to make sure we have ample time to hear from our second panel. I just want to follow up on what senator johnsons saying. Weve had some demonstrations already on star programs, energy star and others that were aware of, and lets just make sure that we use those as laboratories of democracy. Figure out how they work and maybe just as important to some that were attempted that didnt work out. And im, like senator johnson, im always interested how do we align incentives in order to get the kind of behavior were interesting in encouraging. And the other thing id like to do sometimes i quote david osborn who wrote a book back in, oh, i think the early 90s talking about reinventing government, and he talked about the role of the government and the private sector. He said the roll of goth is to of government is to steer the boat, the role of everybody else is to row the boat, to actually do the work. To make it work. I think theres a role for both and, hopefully, we can find the good balance. I just want to say to each of you thanks for the work you do. Thanks for the folks who work with you, and to say especially with respect to Flood Insurance, well look forward to working very closely with gao and with d health care s and others to try to dhs and others to try to find principled compromise that makes a lot of sense. My father would say, if he looked at it from above, he would look at our final work and say, well, they used some common sense. So hopefully, well do that. With that, youre excused, and we thank you for joining us. This will be some followup questions, we just hope that youll respond to those in a prompt way. Thank you so much. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] all the way from, i want to say, san jose, california did you used to live in san jose . We stole him from san jose at the tender anal, i think, of 29 or 30 to come all the way to be our secretary of environmental control. If i had half the energy of this guy, i would be president and Vice President. Hes an amazing guy. Love working with him. Very proud of the work that he does, and thank you for joining us today. Our second witness is from a bigger state than ours, New Hampshire. And kelly ayotte cant be with us this morning, she sends her best, and dr. Paul kirshen . Research professor at the university of New Hampshire. What is your mascot there . Its the wildcats. The wildcats, yes. Weve had some rough football saturdays against the wildcats and the blue hens. We, but were always happy to welcome you here. I understand your research focuses on a lot of resources, engineering and management as well as Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment and adaptation and planning. So its a mouthful, but were happy that you could join us. Thanks so much for coming. And ms. Lindene patton, my mother was a patton, chief climate officer for Zurich International group. In this role ms. Pattop, im told, is responsible for policy and Risk Management relate to Climate Change. You might actually have a member of your family here or two, is that true . Would you put on your mic and just introduce whoevers here from your family . Maybe theyll stand up or something. My daughters, amilya and zoe. Amilya, would you raise your hand . Hi. Zoe, would you raise your hand . And whos in the middle . A friend of hers, shane. All right, sharon. Ladies, thanks for bringing your mom, and your friends mom. Okay. Youve heard me say for the first group take about five minutes or so, if you will, and then well ask some questions. But were delighted that youve come. Its an important hearing and happy to be here along with senator johnson to welcome you. Colin would you, please, proceed. Senator carper, senator johnson, our thoughts also go out to senator coburn. Thank you so much for holding this hearing today. I think your timing is good, and its a critically important topic to delaware as one of the lowestlying states and one of the most vulnerable. Senator carper and i spent a lot of time in helicopters and on the ground looking at the damage. Thats in delaware, weve actually dope b a better job done a better job preparing than other states. Id like to offer some, i think, very Common Sense Solutions that should be part of the conversation Going Forward about shifting the focus to preparedness and resilience and, you know, a little less on the money on the back end. In a way that takes politics out of it and hasnt touched on what the senator is asking about in that strict priority list to make sure they are going to places that dont make sense. Tony pratt who is behind me is our administrator of Coastal Protection looking over the beaches and these are areas that dont qualify for federal assistance, and looking at the economics and who gets the benefit and and her turns out its the owners and not the broader population which suggests the private ownership pay rather than the broad community. Weve also elected the contribution of the coast to figure out the economic benefits of having protection. So having that kind of analytic rigor is important because it allows us to invest strategically and have a strong preference of national systems. We have seen places that have healthy wetlands and places the buildup of the code standards are the ones that turn out very well after the storms. We see of time and time again the communities that are not as prepared to do as well. We are also taking steps to build resiliency and everything we do Going Forward. We dont often make the problem worse. We want to make sure new development is more resilient so now that we have the kind of data that we are not exacerbating the problem and the cost so because of all of this the governor was invited to be on the Climate Task Force and really put a focus on the National Infrastructure and Natural Resource projects that weve been doing across the state whether it is and will maintain or everywhere in between. We are piloting projects we believe can be a national model. With that here are the comments and recommendations for the committee consideration. Resiliency needs to be built into every investment. We dont need a new bureaucracy. We are spending billions each year on waste water, transportation, Community Development block grants. If we go to standards into those, we can make sure its better. Theres nothing more painful than seeing a product that has 80 washed away in a storm in its 10yearsold and we know if its about the better it would survive. The second is we need to invest more on protection. We are spending 5 billion on the the production line to the supplemental. Thats almost 50 years worth of investments compared to what they normally get for the protection line about 100, 150 million in one year. If we spend three or four really in a year on Coastal Protection we could save ten for that money in the years ahead. Its become year to pay for as opposed to investing annually. Third, we need to break the disaster rebuild disaster cycle that we have. Its easier to rebuild to the old infrastructure standard that was there before the storm. You get the money quicker through fema if we do that. Weve seen it in delaware where the bank repairs are made in the northern rape art of the state. There has been a lot of calm diversity about this. What we need to make sure that we are building to a higher standard when we are rebuilding. And i think theres been some Good Progress that we need to make sure the money can as quickly as we are rebuilding the higher standards. We also need to prioritize comprehensive projects. Right now, as we talked about the word of the context you can have the projects ive been out army corps. But its cheaper to put that in a landfill than it is to put it on the beach next to the wetland that can provide a protection project. The Army Corps Corps italic to choose the lowest cost option so they wont actually put it on the beach. They will put it somewhere else. Its ludicrous we could be saving tens of millions a year easily by putting those together and looking at the overall cost. We need to make sure that we continue to drive the Decision Making particularly with floodplain mapping. There is still progress there. We need to be regulations. They havent been updated since 89. Weve been focused on the money side of the cost but the cost of insurance becomes cheaper if standards are higher to it as a challenge all of you are facing with constituents complaining about the high cost. We need the National Infrastructure. We see the that living shorelines work exceptionally well. They shouldnt be the exception or the pilot project. They need to become the default. We need a rewarding community. Right now delaware is spending a lot of state and local money but doesnt receive as much because the systems work whereas the community adjacent to us might spend little money and get everything paid for and the shiny infrastructure but its completely crazy and we need to make sure there are incentives and priorities given to the folks that made their own investments and doing the hard work to hold himself accountable not relying on the federal government as senator johnson said they expect the windfall after doing the work themselves. We need to ensure the expenditures have a Public Benefit to making sure we are not just subsidizing and prioritizing things that have a broad benefit to taxpayers and we need a greater focus. We talk about the coastal communities and residents and businesses along the coast. We have old army landfills and the funding sites. When does wash out the potential cost of the damage from the storms is massive. Weve been focusing on these in delaware but not receiving enough attention. If you want fema to acquire a parcel of its contaminated fema wont touch it for liability reasons that you buy buy another parcel thats whats important. These are things we can change. We are grateful for looking at these issues because i think the strength of delaware shows it do to repair that revenge and worth that. Thank you. We got a lot in in six minutes and 50 seconds. I apologize i always talk quick. I was watching the body language of the co panelists. Doctor kirshen was nodding his head a lot but may be agreed with one or two things you said. We will find out. Thanks so much. Thank you so much, mr. Chairman and senator johnson for giving me the opportunity to talk in front of this committee. I do agree very enthusiastically with everything secretary omara is proposing, and i hope to take some of his ideas back with me to New Hampshire. Supportive of my colleague of New Hampshire and other institutions, i conducted several studies on longterm economic consequences of new england cities going back to bite first of all extreme amounts of precipitation and second, coastal flooding from the coastal surges storms. Here im going to talk about the cost of not being prepared for these in the future event compared to the benefits of being prepared. Because of the changing climate, the Climate Change impacts have always been a part of my analysis. I also want to point out that the case studies in new england they are relevant to many parts of the United States and the world. One of the first things we will talk about is the impact of the coastal surge flooding of the eastern coast of massachusetts created the region strange in from austin to cape cod. This is an area of the cities of boston and also the suburbs. Yet here we look at the total damages of the surge flooding from the storms to the residential, commercial, industrial building over the next hundred years serving several civil rights areas. We look at the damage is and compare to them where the damage is reduced if that had taken place. The cost is by the adaptation. The cost ratio is from us to 30 from urban areas and nine to 13 for the suburban areas. That means benefit cost ratio of six to one with every dollar invested in the adaptation reduces longterm damages by six times. So these are again showing the true benefits of preparing for these future events. The second case study was in the area of New Hampshire with many second homes particularly on the beaches and here we look at the benefits into and the cost of protecting privately owned buildings and the key public assets for the switch plants, fire and police stations from the present and future coastal storms with the adaptation plans protected 2050 and the civil rights scenarios with approximately one to 2 feet. And again we found very large benefit cost ratios reaching from 11 to 16 for the private assets and seven to eight for public assets. In the last case study is managing storm water in massachusetts. The town is located north of boston and cambridge on the mystic river as one of the densely populated than his abilities of new england. This area is reserved by the combined sewer system that carries both storm water and sanitary waste. Presently the storm system of the sewer system only has the capacity to handle all the waste wastewater, small amounts of the storm water, one the largest storm occurs with 1 inch of rainfall the extra combined sewage is through the Wastewater Treatment plant but most of the combined waste is discharged partially treated in the river and in the street with sewage. The system is going to be further stretched by increases of extreme rainfall and ten to 30 by 2070 and high sea levels on the river. So again we did a benefit cost analysis comparing the cost of the adaptation and be system to handle more waste with the benefits of the adaptation. Weve got a benefit cost ratios of 41. Again showing the advantages of dealing with these goblins now rather than later. So to summarize, and i will talk about the recent research on the adaptation to Climate Change to the cost of the damages. To the cost i talk about is underestimated because it includes the cost with such items as human deaths and injury to the direct cost. With the costs not included in the become of the many scenarios there is no action in all cases it is the worst thing to do. And also the benefit cost ratios are so high this to me would indicate that these actions are useful if we didnt have Climate Change. First of all the threats for the Climate Change of the greenhouse gases. We have the increased rainfall for 30 . But we cannot read reversed refers to Climate Change or the state Climate Change to continue for centuries and we have to adapt and be prepared. Like everyone else here i support the planning now to start dealing with these threats otherwise we are going to be suffering. Thank you for the time. Thank you for coming on the way to New Hampshire. Until the wildcats we said hello. Ms. Patton, your statement will be made a part of the writer. Please proceed. And make sure the microphone is on. Ranking member johnson, thank you. I serve as the chief officer. They are a global insurer providing insurance and Risk Management solutions to customers and 170 countries with serving customers in the United States since 1912 and the thirdlargest commercial cow sure the insurer over 8,000 employees nationwide. We would like to thank you for holding the hearing and im pleased to serve with the committee with the nation to extreme weather events and the economic importance of investing today and improving resilience. We observe the u. S. Is increasingly reliant on Disaster Recovery fund is to respond to extreme weather events and its underinvested both physically and economically. The data shows that theyve increased from an these increased from an average of 400 in 1980 to over a thousand in north america today. The federal Disaster Relief alone over the last three years have risen to 400 per household that is more than a fourfold increase over the past three years. In other words the resilience gap is large and growing. How large . Professor predicted over the next 75 years the costs of the federal government share of unfunded response costs for the weatherrelated disasters would grow to more than 1 trillion u. S. Dollars and might be as much as 5. 7 trillion. Unfunded exposures of the state catastrophe funds are in addition to the number and projected to be at a 3 trillion. Taxpayers bear the burden of this unbudgeted risk and associated lost cause. Without a decisive Risk Reduction by government as well as in sugars economically unsustainable and unbudgeted Disaster Management costs can be expected to continue on an upward judge after he read insurance is a unique capacity to present facility to Risk Management and risk price signals all of which help inform stakeholders about the risk magnitude and reduction priorities. A study by the bank of internationals sound uninsured and underinsured economies are likely to suffer longterm Macro Economic damage. Some may believe the Disaster Recovery funding took the place of insurance, but it does not. One of the critical differences is the Disaster Recovery funds typically are delivered more slowly than insurance payments resulting in slow recovery and longerterm negative economic impacts. But at the extreme weather events require Risk Management before, during and after the event. If the response is only after they occurred the society has squandered its best opportunities to control the risks and costs related to these events. Should resilience of resilience be prioritized over the Disaster Response costs . Absolutely. It pays tens of billions of dollars and provides protection to the public in the face of increasing extreme weather events and reduces human suffering and create domestic jobs and growth to mystic manufacturing mystic manufacturing building more resilient housing and infrastructure. Zurich understands the investment and resilience and acts accordingly. We are proud of our efforts and here are examples. Zurich supported the following institutions to focus on resilience improvements including the World Economic forum the Business Continuity institute, the institute for building and home safety. Over the years weve worked with progressive customers like marriott and verizon to demonstrate by design and implementation cost beneficial extreme Risk Mitigation solutions. Weve committed to purchase a billion dollars of u. S. Bonds focused specifically on resilience making zurich a leader supporting the instruments on the scale that matters. What action might begin by taking a shortterm, mediumterm and longterm to close this recently . Develop a National Priority plan for the resilience investment. Promote increased government private investment in infrastructure resilience can educate society on the true cost of extreme weather and promote and enforce stronger building codes. Two specific Actions Congress could take to improve resilience might include use the language of the extreme weather title of the Water Resource Development act as a template to improve or easily as required to bring the billions of federal government investments annually in water, highway transit and aviation infrastructure. They also might expand the resilient pilot preceding to include commercial applications and most importantly entire ratings. How much should be budgeted . It might be logical to take a portion of the predicted emergency disaster appropriations to improve resilience and affects. Funding is a fundamentally wise investment and spending on the Disaster Relief recovery. The Mitigation Council found that funding resilience provides a 41 return on investment and co panelists noted other studies which have indicated similar or improved returns on investment as the cost to the federal government of extreme weather events increased by the budget imperative in. To make greater investments. In conclusion the zurich has an opportunity to improve the nations homes, businesses and Critical Infrastructure and this can be achieved in a manner that will save the federal, state and local government of billions annually providing citizens greater protection for the weather events to be the zurich is encouraged by the efforts to improve the result the resulting and see and look forward to working with the committee any way that we can help. Thank you very much. Im going to step out to take a phone call. Senator johnson will lead to the question. Thank you mr. Chairman. I would like to start with you. You mentioned a growing resilience gap. How much of the gap and the growth would give attribute to the fact we continue to build a very risky areas in this country . Im not into position to hear and identify the percentage or the precise number but its substantial. We have more assets in harms way. We have a history and a lot of data and research that indicates we have a migration to coast and locations which have limited water supplies. We have migration to the wilderness urban interface. Under all of those circumstances, you put more assets in harms way so the suggestion is at least a portion of the driver but we also have other suggestions that the climate is changing. Theres no question. When the society subsidizes private individuals taking those types of risk, that increases the type of behavior, correct . Qquebec there is research and testimony that does demonstrate that. In fact if there is an interference with the signals and a subsidy that basically provides information to an individual that moving to this location isnt cheap and if there is a disaster it will be a subsidized and yes. We have that interference contract . What would cause that from the standpoint . There are a multitude of things you do some of it are actual funding and some of it is perceptive so indicates that the actual funding there are programs that provide subsidies for the government run Insurance Programs. There are also circumstances where there are perceptions and there was a study done by a federal task force trying to look at what people understood that their insurance and what that study revealed is people didnt understand what was insured and underinsured and the assumption is the federal disaster would be delivered kind of like insurance. And they were correct . That reality is that the reality is that priorities for federal disaster funding is to really look at getting Critical Infrastructure up and started. But not necessarily always focused on an individual asset which is the purview of the private insurance and they are not a 100 substitute and i have cited the research in my written testimony that affirms that and demonstrates that in fact Disaster Recovery funds are not economically dont have the same economic value that you would have from private insurance and that you can have longerterm negative macroeconomic impacts if you are underinsured versus having adequate insurance. It does come as necessary as it is in those circumstances it creates more hazard, doesnt it . It is very clear that under the circumstances the federal government must respond under the disaster. Its a political imperative but its a social imperative. But how you manage and structure that is important and has some of the other panelists suggested the ways to clear a place to spending and there are ways to structure the programs in terms of providing the price signals that are consistent. Thereve been recommendations made by the school as to how some of the riskbased price signal might be adjusted for certain federal Insurance Programs. There are other suggestions that exist in terms of pre rightsizing Infrastructure Investments so that resilience is baked into the design. Do you think people build 1 million, 2 milliondollar homes around the beach if they have to pay the full cost of the risk on their insurance . I dont think im in a position to know that. [laughter] is it a fantasy to think that we could over time privatize the Flood Insurance program . I think that would be a question that i would have to return to you on in terms of responding in fall. I think its very important for us to send the consistent price signals in the context. And that is not happening right now with the National Flood Insurance Program, correct . There are changes to the Flood Insurance program. Which you suspected. Which are designed to allow that. Thats not a good thing in terms of the reduction of the moral hazard. You are creating that incentive for the Risk Management and mitigation and weasley and the creation, correct . Absolutely i couldnt agree with you more its important that the riskbased price signal and the insurance functionality he permitted to make sure that the risks can be accessed and the asset owners can be fully informed about only with the actual functional risk is that with the cost of the risk is so they can make decisions about how to invest not only where they invest that when they put the structures together how much they invest. We are talking about private individuals. At the same time the government has property which they also purchase insurance for, correct . There is something called a selfinsurance rule under the government and there are it depends whether you are talking about local, state or federal government. And in general, the federal government is primarily a self insurer. Does that reduce their incentive in the risk in your opinion . If they were forced by insurance within their budgets they are building and not mitigating risk without help mitigate risk . The only thing i can point you to is there is a longstanding cultural or generals opinion which dates back to the 17 hundreds and indicates that the federal government is supposed to be a self insurer by blue and there are policy reasons for that. But the functionality of private insurance you are absolutely correct it is to send the riskbased price signal to encourage people to mitigate risks are that they that they can control the cost over time. Use it in the testimony the heavy unique capacity to try that discipline. Do you gentlemen want to comment on that line of questioning . Writing i i could i would just add the problem that we are seeing continue is to see themselves as libertarian until they need help because they havent taken care of the private market. We are trying to figure out ways in delaware and one of the counties they dont have the more protective policies in place and did not have the State Government in this case to be the backstop because they are bucking the private insurance and then he comes saying can you fix this it is an erosion issue to try to realign the incentives whether local or international. Doctor kirshen . Im not an expert on insurance but i know if the water rates go up its very important that we send the right signals for Climate Change prepared us as well, and i also want to say that the engineering and Science Community and the community i think we know how to do adaptation. We need to send the right signal to the market to give us the opportunity to work with stakeholders to implement the adaptation. Thank thank you all for the testimony. Thank you mr. Chairman. I asked my staff to doublecheck to see if there is a oneyear stay on the effectiveness of the implementation of the Flood Insurance changes. It was a bigger legislation and i think it expires at the end of this fiscal year so there is an opportunity for us to take what you said here today and work with the administration who isnt wild about the legislation and work with especially this committee to see if we can align the incentives to do what they need to do so that it doesnt all fall on the taxpayers. I noticed in the audience dereferenced tony cracked by name and its great to see the work youve done and the example you set for folks in the other states as well. You said something in her testimony i think you mentioned some Actions Congress could take to improve resilience and you said im just going to read the language in extreme weather titles of the research Development Act as an example of what can be applied to improve every zillions requirements training the hundreds of billions of dollars of the federal government invests annually in the water, port, highly country and set and infrastructure and i think at that point i noticed i looked at both of your colleagues as witnesses and they were both going nodding their heads up and down. I think i know why, im going to ask. Why were you so abusive in your response at that point . Right now there is a significant disconnect. It is with other appropriation bills where the Design Standards havent kept up with the risks. We saw those frankly in delaware and the indian river bridge where we build a beautiful bridge 150 million that we but we were not successful working with the army corps to do the cost sharing of the system to protect the asset and so either having a better design or the more protection across the business lines and agency is critical. And so whether it is the authority in the language and the authorizations making sure that studies winds are stronger across all not just transportation but wastewater and the block grant in particular it is the lifeblood of many of the municipalities in terms of delivering products and having more account of the thieves could save a lot of money. Thanks. Im not going to say much because im not an expert in this. [inaudible] [laughter] bios invasion is working with communities. There are many institutional barriers to the adaptation and we have to address them as well as the financial ones. This is some of them. This would be the next question for the secretary. Mitigation as we know can be very Cost Effective and in reducing lives lost and the damage caused by the Natural Disasters and i believe we have had a lot of success with mitigation because those of us are sitting here in front of us today. I think that weve done well with the wealth of the small investment saving our state a lot of money. And if you could, doctor kirshen command secretary omara but based, doctor kirshen, on your research how beneficial is extreme weather mitigation especially the longterm planning when it comes to saving money . As i said earlier we are getting to cost ratios if you look at the benefits of the adaptation versus doing nothing. Benefit cost ratio for30 so it is extremely beneficial to do this. And i think the communities realized this. He compared to the huge cost we will face if we dont. Thank you. Thank you. Just a followup. Based upon your experience what needs to be done to encourage and support state and local governments to support individuals and businesses to adopt mediation measures such as adapting or adopting updated program goes to better address the threats. I think there are two pieces to the equation. The one that senator johnson was raising about the economics and making sure the economics of inaction are very clear. And then also toughening up a little bit and making sure that folks dont take actions that government would come in and bail them out after the fact. The use your political outcome. A variable to do those things you will see a change fairly quickly. The money will drive a lot of these investments. I do think that there are significant of attendees for the federal government to incentive reward communities to take the types of actions we have been talking about. Whether that is consideration for federal resources, competitive grants or having a higher percentage for either percentage allocations for mass and other types of federal assistance. Well, if you have done the kind of hard work that will save the federal government money in the long run because for example, in delaware we did not have the thresholds because most of our systems worked. We were not hit as hard as other states. There were states to the south of us have received a lot of federal money. We did receive any because i systems were successful. We should be rewarded or incentivize in some ways. I think that aligning those incentives, as you talked about, work that this committee, i think, could lead on. And alliance incentive to drive investment at the local level. Thank you. If i could, question. With the insurance from a long history of Risk Management when it comes to extreme weather, ways to create more Publicprivate Partnerships to help share the knowledge between federal and state and local governments. I believe that there are. I believe that it is important to continue those detectives examplars that you have, which are ongoing, and expand them. As i mentioned earlier in my testimony and excited about the resilience pilot as d. H. As provides a framework. Show and my. Let the record show. It provides a framework in which we can and are collaborating in a Publicprivate Partnership context. We are just at the beginning of this pilot. But i can see it very easily extending to the commercial and infrastructure context. That happens when you can create a resilience community. Aid would enable other private sector opportunities, and other types of incentives may present themselves if you have a resilience community. It may be obvious. Might be a good place to invest. It might be obvious that the risks were loans are placed under those substances reduced. It is not just about insurance with a longterm functionality and Economic Resilience of that community to be able to survive and thrive even before, during, and after extreme weather events that is just one example. I think that to the extent that some of the other recommendations of the panel can be followed through in terms of providing opportunities with Infrastructure Investment and matching funds that will provide other of the cit is with the private sector to inject themselves in the process. Thanks. One final question. The votes have begun. As you know, we are at a time when we are trying to further reduce our spending and the deficit. Still too much. 550 billion. But as a result some of the colleges have been critical of extreme weather mitigation efforts. Because they cost the federal government money. The punishment for social communities and other things as well. Those who say that taking the steps that need to build resilience are way too costly and therefore should not be taken . If you have any advice on how to better plan for extreme weather events and reduce the nature of risks. Fairly brief. Would you close us out with that . I think we will at the economics week for themselves. We can say an extra dollar invested is a right to save you five or 10 the the fear of budget. That is a compelling argument. Ill take that return any date. The same thing could be said for structure investment. Theyre is a huge appreciative you right now because we do have data that we could collect fairly easily. Commissions that were well prepared and was the or not. We should be collecting that data as we speak to make sure we know the cost of the federal government. A jersey for example. Getting significantly more money. We should be quantifying that spirit that can help make your case to your colleagues. The investments of front. Thanks. Very briefly. I agree with the secretary. Again, and else of revenge is worth a pound of and i guess the solution. Thank you. I would also agree that economic to speak for themselves at think it is not just about the age a dense but the potential interruption to the Gross Domestic Product for the impact of regents and about the potential for actual communities in a longer exist or to be severely interrupted not just for weeks with years and to not be restored to what they were before. The investment and resilience has to affect economic value and social value in the short term and the long term. Let me conclude first of all thank you. Grateful that he took some time. I go back to what i said. One of my favorite colleagues, everyone loans. But get a lot done, focus. Set aside that 12 percent or you dont agree. Theyre is a lot of agreement. A fairly controversial hearing. It was not all. Senator johnson came. He stayed. State law because he thought it was worthwhile. A great deal that we can agree on and Work Together and so i just thank you for helping us to find the middle. Some who are not here will submit their questions. Fifteen days to do that. Any of those questions. And with that this hearing is adjourned. Thank you so much. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] here is what is coming up on cspan2. Next, another congressional hearing, this one looking at the safety and regulation of the cigarettes. Then actors death row in testifies at a hearing on alzheimers research. Later washington journalists have also ours as well. Here is a look get some of our primetime programming across the networks. Coming up here on cspan2 at 8 00, more book tv. Focus on addressing poverty. American history tv dropping the atomic bomb including a president could determine came to the decision to deploy the weapon. And over on cspan at 8 00 in special look back at congressional hearings dealing with the irs targeting investigation. Here is a preview. This is not being forthcoming this is being misleading again. This is a pattern of abuse, a pattern of behavior that is not giving us any confidence that this agency is being impartial. I dont believe. This is incredible. I have a long career. That is the first time that anyone has said they do not believe me. I do not believe you. Thats fine. I am willing to stand on the record and remind you that it was not buried in 27 pages. Most of that is exhibits. When asked about the custodians we advise you being forthcoming. Which renew for one day. Be forthcoming. You know what congress is investigating. Would you let him answer the question. I didnt ask him a question. Yes, you did. This element the gentleman the gentleman from wisconsin. I control the time. I realize that disrupting a hearing come on. The gentleman from wisconsin. I am not using the time. Control the time. Here is what being forthcoming is. Regular order. If we are investigating criminal wrongdoing, targeting a people based on the political beliefs, and a nose in question are lost because of a hard drive crash that is apparently a recoverable with a lot of ip professionals will question and you dont tell us about it until we ask you about it, that is not being forthcoming. That is not true. I yield back the balance of my time. Its on the heels back. The zone and has yielded back is time. And a brief portion of one of the hearings will focus on tonight during a look at the congressional investigation entire starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on our companion network cspan. This weekend special programming on the cspan network. Friday night native American History. On saturday a debate on scottish independence. Sunday q a with judge robert katzman, chief justice of the Second Circuit court of appeals. Book tv in primetime friday at 8 00 p. M. In depth with former congressman ron paul. Then on saturday at 10 00 p. M. After words with William Burroughs talking about his book the asteroid threat. Another chance to see that Program Sunday at 9 00 eastern. On American History tv friday a nasa documentary about the 1969 apollo 11 moon landing. On saturday lyndon b. Johnsons nomination acceptance speech from the 1964 democratic convention. Sunday night in a look at election laws and a legal precedent of bush verses gore. Find our Television Schedules had to cspan. Org and let us know what you think about the programs youre watching. Call us. On twitter use the hash tank c123 or email us at comments. It join the cspan conversation, like us on facebook, follows on twitter. Recently the American Heart Association announced that the organization will back the use of ecigarette as a Smoking Cessation tool. Earlier this year the fda director of Tobacco Products said ecigarette have the potential to do harm and good. The agency simply does not have all the answers yet. That is why more studies are needed. His comments came before the Senate Health education labor and Pensions Committee and theyre hearing examining proposed fda regulations over ecigarette and other new Tobacco Products. Senator tom harkin chairs this committee. Is an hour and 25 minutes. [inaudible conversations]