quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: quorum call: ms. murkowski: mr. president? the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from alaska. ms. murkowski: mr. president i request proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: mr. president i ask unanimous consent that on wednesday, january 28, 2015, at 2:30 p.m. the senate proceed to vote in relation to the following amendments in the order listed: cardin number 75, peters number 70, sanders number 23 cruz number 15, merkley number 125 moran number 73, whitehouse number 148 daines number 132 coons number 115 collins number 35, carper number 120, murkowski number 166 heitkamp number 133 gillibrand number 48, barrasso number 245 cardin number 124 daines number 246, and burr number 92 as modified with the changes at the desk. and further that all amendments on this list be subject to a 60-vote affirmative threshold for adoption and that no second-degrees be in order to the amendments. i ask consent that there be two minutes of debate equally divided between each vote and that all votes after the first in the series be ten-minute votes. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection approved. so ordered. ms. murkowski: mr. president i now ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: mr. president i understand that s. 272 introduced earlier today by senator shaheen is at the desk, and i ask for its first reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the title of the bill for the first time. the clerk: s. 272, a bill making appropriations for the department of homeland security for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2015, and for other purposes. ms. murkowski: i now ask for its second reading and object to my own request. the presiding officer: the objection is heard. the bill will be read for the second time on the next legislative day. ms. murkowski: thank you mr. president. i now ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it adjourn until 9:30 a.m., wednesday january 28. i ask that following the prayer and pledge the morning hour deemed expired the journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day and that the senate then be in a period of morning business for one hour with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each with the republicans controlling the first half and the democrats controlling the final half and that following morning business the senate then resume consideration of s. 1 under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. murkowski: with that, mr. president, if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it -- if i could -- the presiding officer: the senator from washington. ms. cantwell: if i could mr. president, i wanted to say to our colleagues that we want to encourage people who haven't spoken or need to speak on amendments to make sure they come down tomorrow morning to do so. i appreciate the senator from alaska working with us on this amendment process today. ms. murkowski: thank you mr. president. it has been a long day and we are at the end. but as members can see, we have a path forward tomorrow, and i think that that is good. so mr. president if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate is adjourned until 9:30 tomorrow morning. >> tonight craig few fugate on the rising cost of disasters. and later house financial services committee hearing on making mortgages available to more first-time home buyers. >> federal management agency director craig fugate talked about costs of disasters. his recommendations for reducing the costs future disasters including require insurance for large structures and improvements to building codes. this house transportation subcommittee hearing is two hours and 15 minutes. >> committee comes to order. i'd like to thank chairman for the opportunity to serve as chairman of the subcommittee, ranking member welcome back. i look forward to building on our bipartisan record of accomplishments from last congress. let me welcome the new and returning anybodies members. last year we saved $2.2 million on gsa projects and passed the sandy recovery improvement act. these were major accomplishments and i thank everyone who is involved in them. this congress my two top priorities, are going to be public buildings reform and disaster legislation. i think that we can exceed the gsa savings from last congress and we have some important reforms to tack physical the emergency management world. i hope that we can have disaster legislation and a gsa reform bill ready for the committee to consider in the first hall of this year. the purpose of today's hearing is to launch a public policy debate about the growing human and financial costs of disasters and to review if we, as a nation, are responding in a most appropriate and cost effective way. the private sector and government are spend ang ever increasing amount of money on disasters. fema alone has obligated more than $178 million since 1989 over 1,300 presidentially disaster declarations. those numbers are going up. and i don't believe we're fully -- we fully understand why, and what can be done to reduce those losses, and protect our citizens. over the past eight years, chairman schuster and this committee made reforms through the post katrina emergency management reform act and the sandy recovery improvement act. these bills and the hard work of fema and our state and local partners have made tremendous improvements to our disaster response capabilities since hurricane katrina. now is the time to take a look at how the nation responds to disasters and where we want to head in the future. there has not been a comprehensive assessment of disaster aid in trends in at least 20 years. in recent years, specifically in reaction to hurricanes katrina and sandy significant disaster aid has been provided outside the standard disaster relief programs. there are many questions we should try and answer. for example, how much do we really spend on disasters? where is the money going? and what are the key drivers of those cost increases? how have disaster programs evolved over time? are there still target -- are they still targeted at the greatest need and are they cost beneficial. what are the principle guiding federal assistance and how is it used to rebuild in the wake of a disaster. answered may surprise you as they have surprised me. i notice that mr. mccarthy's testimony only a handful of disasters account for over 90% of all disaster spending since 1989. but we want to understand why federal disaster -- they had to be saved by a helicopter. the women there told me that they never -- they can never live in that home again. i will never forget that preparing for natural disasters is about more than the loss of possessions. it's our friends and neighbors' lives that could be at stake if we do not plan in advance. as we were rebuilding, i was amazed at much of the federal assistance was to rebuild in the same place in the same way. leaving people vulnerable to the next storm. we have to be compassionate and responsive to our citizens and also have to -- have the duty to be good stewards of the taxpayer dollars. i am committed to establishing a framework to tackle these issues and come up with solutions that are driven by facts and data rather than the emotion that is inevitably following a disaster. i don't have all the answers but we will put together the right people to get them. the first step is this hearing. where we have brought together some key people to launch this discussion. i am also excited to announce that following this hearing on february 26th we will host the first of several roundtables on this topic. the first roundtable will look at disaster losses from all levels of government and the private sector. i look forward to the ongoing conversations starting with hearing from our witnesses here today, and i want to thank you all for being here. i ask unanimous consent that membered of the full committee not on the subcommittee be permitted to sit with the submitt committee at the hearing and ask questions. without objection so ordered. i now call on the ranking member of the subcommittee mr. carson for a brief opening statement. thank you chairman, and welcome to the first hearing of the 114th congress. i'm pleased to return as ranking member of the subcommittee and look forward to continue the good working relationship we both share are. as my friend chairman barletta stated were able to partner in the last congress and i'm deeply thankful the chairman is back ready for warfare looking good and looking fit as always. also i'd be remiss if i didn't mention a legend and a true american icon and that's the honorable eleanor holmes norton so among the many issues we'll hear i'm interested in examining the training programs available to our first responders ensuring timely and efficient emergency response when and wherever disaster strikes is critical. some of the emergency managers in the great hoosier state of indiana have reach out to me regarding the limited accessibility of fema training centers. we must make certain that adequate programs are available and that sufficient access is available to those training programs. further, after a disaster, very sadly hear stories about elderly and disabled individuals having to feign for themes because they were not adequately informed prior to the storm, or they were unable to access resources after the storm. this was particularly the case after hurricane sandy. we must ensure that emergency preparedness and response systems are inclusive of vulnerable populations and those with language barriers. moreover in their written testimony, mema discusses concerns about level of support services states should be required to provide. i understand their concern but it is 2015 and no one should be left behind. especially our most vulnerable neighbors. so, i think it's very imperative we revisit the same issues in this congress to ensure that everyone has access to the same information and resources, and thank you mr. chairman. i look forward to working with you. >> thank you ranking member carson. we have two panels of witnesses today. our first panel we have administrator fugate current administrator of fema who brings tremendous emergency management experience as well as successes and implementing key reforms and driving progress at fema. on our second panel, we'll be joined by mr. fran mccarthy an expert that will show us the trend in disaster assistance hour and assistance has evolved over time. mr. brian koon, the director of the florida division of emergency management is here to talk about his experience as well as help us see things from a state perspective. administrator david paulison who led fema in the wake of hurricane katrina and through the post katrina emergency management reform act. he will discuss the changes he has seen in disasters and provide some thoughts on ways to address the rising costs of disasters. finally, we're joined by chief brian finnessy, who will share his experience in emergency management specifically the alarming trends in wildfire activity in this country. i ask unanimous consent our witnesses' full statements be included in the record without objection, so ordered. since your written testimony has been made a part of the record the subcommittee would request that you limit your oral testimony to five minutes. administrator fugate you may proceed. >> thank you, ranking member other members of the committee. in my written statement is talked about some of the to go things we have been working on since the sandy recovery improvement act passed. this committee, you helped us address many issues that it came up repeat lid. first off i have to recognize the fact that you gave us the authority to recognize the tribal governments as an entity that could deal directly with the president in requesting disaster declaration, something they sought for a long time. this committee made sure it was part of the legislation. you have also given us tools we identified in lessons learned in imagining debris and also making sure as we begin the process of rebuilding we're able to speed up the process of identifying those large projects, obligating moneys and allowing more discretion to state and local officials on how to build back better. that was an important tool that we began using as far back as some damage from hurricane irene, with the state of vermont. it is giving us flexibility that states and local governments have asked for in building back better and building back to the future. this trends and disasters are not surprising to me. with an aging infrastructure concentration of populations and highly vulnerable areas, that fortunately don't have a lot of disasters. when they do occur, the costs are substantial. particularly when you look at what happens when the number of public buildings that are under or uninsured are damaged or destroyed. i think things such as dealing with individual losses that were uninsured, dealing with debris costs, dealing with response costs, are always going to be part of the formula. but when you look at most recently in sandy, the billion dollars and more in some projects we're having to pay to rebuild structures, it's important for us to make sure that in the future we have built back those structures to where they are insurable and look at making sure the insurance provisions are more strenuously applied and less opportunities to allow structures to come back for repeated assistance because they weren't insured. we firmly believe we should do more diligent work with state and local partners to ensure when we build back, we just don't look at old data, we just don't use cost benefit analysis to account for the future etch also need to engage the private sector more strongly in insuring risk and in those areas where the private sector cannot insure risks, ask hard questions, should we build back where we were, should we build back the way it was or do we need to change? because if anything we know that many areas are subject to repeated disasters. i personally went into arkansas last year to see damage from a tornado. i saw a school, fortunately not occupied, nearly completed, that was destroyed. i was informed by our staff there from the regional office the school was being rebuilt from a 2010 tornado. where it had been destroyed. it was destroyed again. what really troubled me was, we did not have an opportunity or did not seek the opportunity to make sure the school had safe rooms in it. and we have committed to and have now established that in tornado-prone areas when we are dealing with schools and other public structures-we will fine a way to make sure that we fund safe rooms to protect children during tornadoes. so you have given us a lot of tools. many of them are still in the implementation phase. some of them have not gone asaphia as i would like. part of it was the implementation and getting buy-in from partners at the state and local level. i'm seeing early success and i think it will be a good discussion to have with you and the committee over our findings our challenges and where success is taking place. i firmly believe the role of the federal government is to support and not supplant our state and local officials, that fema is a support agency, and the cost of disasters is a shared responsibility. but i do think it's appropriate that when disasters exceed the capabilities of the state and local governments that we must be there to support them, not only the initial response but to ensure successful recovery. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you for your testimony administer temperature fugate. i will now begin the first round of questions limited to five minutes for each member. if there are additional questions following the first round, we'll have additional rounds of questions as needed. we all know disaster costs are going up dramatically. what do you think are driving those costs and can we do anything about them? >> well, one way that people have said to look at disaster costs is reduce eligibility or raise thresholds for declares disasters, but as i think you see the smaller disasters are not what drives the majority of the big ticket items. it's the larger events itch think it comes back to in many cases we have aging infrastructure, we have dense populated areas in vulnerable zones whether it's from hurricanes flooding, earthquakes, and those costs i think, historically, were things that we looked at-insurance and other tools to manage the risk. but that risk has now i think, moved more toward this federal taxpayer in the fema programs. i think over time it was the unintended consequences of the programs we were seen as a -- instead of being support of last resort, often times the first resort for the coverage of insurable property that was not insured and those losses. again, it is really the decision that we have to look at how do we best insure communities are able to rebuild and at the same time don't support or continue growing the risk. i think we have to understand there's a certain amount of risk out there right now elm we have modeled some disasters. they're actually bigger than sandy, the exposure for just south florida from a repeat of the great miami hurricane would be in the hubs of billions of dollars, federal costs exceeding both sandy and katrina. so it is, i think, something we need to look at. but more importantly we have to make sure as we good in after disaster we're setting the stage for the future not come back and repeat it over and over again. >> we continue to see new disaster aid programs emerge ad hoc in reaction to disasters. they all seem to have different rules and requirement does do not seem well-coordinated or focused on obtaining the best outcomes. is this something congress should take a look at, so that we can streamline these programs and ensure that they're cost effective? >> mr. chairman week go back to the post katrina emergency management format. one thing you directed fema to do ex-were slowing in doing it but it news in place is to build a national recovery framework to take the various programs programs and localite more wholeis likely when working with state and local partners. congress needs to know the total costs. there shouldn't be hidden costs in other appropriations. i caution the flexibility of the programs and the fact we deal with preexisting condition, that fema's programs going to deal with that necessaryibility is often times -- let me give you an example of community block grant dollars. when we deal with housing issues in a disaster it's generally the affordable housing based that was heavily damaged-wasn't insured, and we're not the program that rebuilds permanent housing. we deal with the temporary response. so if we're not able to partner with hud the risk is a rebound effect. we meet need needs but there's no solution long-term. these is why in katrina people in travel trailers for years because we did not approach this at the beginning low his particularly, we have to standard looking at affordable housing and start programs almost simultaneously to the recovery programs. the necessaryibility and ability to take the different programs are important tool wes should not discard. it's important to have a total accounting of the real cost of disasters, not just what the stafford act may be providing. >> what incentive does you think the federal government do provide to states to encourage better disaster preparation, planning, bulging, -- budgeting and smarter rebuilding to reduce future losses and kansass. >> the state, nema will present to you -- i if i put my state hat on i would look for more federal participation early in the process. one thing i've heard from both the general can'ting office and the ig we are tooth be raising the threshold for disaster. i'm against that for several ians. it penalizes long population states buts them in almost unintolerable level to get and smaller states would have little impact. many states have developed their own public asince stance program but only apply to generally after they've been denied for federal assistance. there's almost a disincentive for a state to manage smaller disasters for fear if they do that it may not make them eligible for fema disaster declaration under the president's authority. what we have been looking at is our current model is once you reach the threshold, he president declares a disaster, we cost share back to the first dollar. we have been exploring when the if you didn't raise the threshold but look how far back to we go and give states more predictability how much they are responsible for before we do come in with federal assistance and base not just per cap a put impact those state economy, budget reserves, the exalt of the state. i think some states have been very progressive in this areas. others the state legislatures have seen that the federal government will come in, go back to the first dollar and have resistance to building their own capacity. if we can build more capacity for the reoccurring routine disasters at the state and local level, it would allow us to focus on the large disasters itch don't think it necessarily brings the big dollar ticket items down but does start building more capacity across the states for reoccur events we find ourselves involved in. >> thank you. i will now recognize each member for five minutes of questions, and i'll start with ranking member carson. >> thank you, chairman. thank you administrator fugate. the international association of fire chiefs notes that fema does not fully reimburse fire departments for their firefighting efforts when called to service. in addition fema does not cover full wages required by the fair labor standards act or the back phil costs replacing a firefighter dispatch on a mutual aid agreement. sir, is fema prohibited by statute from fully reimbursing fire departments for costs? if not, why is fema not fully reimbursing the fire departments? >> i would need congressman specific information. i would have to look at the cases. fema funds those extraordinary costs above and beyond what was budgeted. you were already bucketed to respond to fires and you debt declared that does not necessarily become eligible but over time costs of back phil where you're supporting mutual aid under the emergency management systems compact across state lines, comes back to what the mutual aid agreements are ahead of time. one of our challenges has been, unless there's an obligation to pay, just because you have a disaster declaration doesn't make it eligible. we do try to look at the nonbudgetted extraordinary costs, we try to be very aggressive in identifying those costs. we don't go back and do 1 hasn't%. our cost share its 75-25 and then the state and locals determine how to do that. under fire management assistant grant costs we do not go back to the first dollar because each state has an annualized budget for firefighting, so we look at extraordinary costs. if your office will share with us the specific details we'll research that, but my position has always been if it's eligible, its eligible and we look at extraordinary costs above what they budgeted for the day-to-day activities should be reimburse able but specifically to what case and how much, if they can give me examples we'll look at it and try to make sure we were doing the right thing during that time frame. >> thank you sir. >> now recognize mr. carbello. >> thank you mr. chairman. administrator fugate, thank you for your presence here this morning and thank you for your service to the people of florida over so many years. we remember you fondly and mills you at times. so thank you very much. i present south florida where a large portion of my district lives on or near the coast. one of the constant worries hear from my constituents back home especially in the florida keys is the need to reform the national flood insurance program. i'm a cosponsor of the flood insurance premium parity act bill that extended the recent reform to business properties and owner-occupied second homes. i feel it is critical these properties receive the same relief already provided to residential properties and single family homes afforded to them under bigger waters act of 2012. can you share your thoughts on what best can be done to provide affordable flood insurance for my constituents? do you feel that we should apply to commercial properties and second homes the same formula for yearly rate increases received by residential properties? >> well, first of all, y'all may miss me but you got a great guy in bryan koons so the state is in good hand. you opened up a very good philosophical debate and a can of worms how far the insurance program should go. here's my question. if the private insurance companies cannot insure it, is it something the federal government should assume the risk? we're doing risk transferrens, anytime the private sector can't cover the risk and we take on the responsibility you, the taxpayers, are back can it. that may be good policy. that may be the desire and intend of congress, which i would support if that's the desire. i must caution that in transferring the risk back to the flood insurance program, which i over $20 billion in debt, we have to understand that it not an, a barely sound program, will not be able to pay back its debt and growing that exposure may be good policy but i think it's one we need to go forward and understand what the risk is. the challenge is, understanding the built infrastructure and how we protect that but also how do we enforce the future and ensure we don't continue to grow that risk? that does not mean we cannot build in coastal areas. it does mean we have to build differently. so i think the question that i would narrow back down to is, we've got a lot of businesses. we have a lot of homes, a lot of property that is exposed. insurance is not available or not affordable. it will be a huge economic loss to local jurisdictions from tax based losses business losses, jobs lost. if it makes sense to insure that, then we will implement it. but i also caution that we have to make sure we don't set up an unfair system that continues to grow risk by allowing people then to build in areas without taking the steps, which can be moe costly, but then transfer that risk back to us, the federal taxpayer. it's a shared responsibility it is an interesting debate. we would be more than willing to engage in it but we have to be up front there are many people both in congress and outside that do not want to grow the flood insurance program and the exposure others who think they do. we would be interested in participating in the debate but we really think this is the sense of congress, 0 we need guidance from congress on what this should be. >> thank you. the state of florida has learned a lot since 1992 and has changed a lot. do you feel that the state is adequately prepared today for a potential storm you revved to one earlier, great miami storm? drew feel that we have done enough from your perspective to prepare and to mitigate potential damages? >> i'll leave it to brian to talk about what under leadership he and governor scott have been able to achieve. i one to point out one thing florida did. it was a hard painful lesson but under governor bush it the establish. only statewide mandatory building codes. learning the lessons of south florida and then across the state. the one thing that is saving taxpayers more money and making sure you still have commercially available insurance is the fact that florida did did strengthen its building code and enforces it across all counties and cities. wait as courageous step given many people said it would make homes unaffordable. the reality was without the building code they would have been uninsurable. at we continue to see citizens some risk as more people buy into the florida market it a testament to better built homes for the environment they're in, and this is the lesson all states should pay attention to. when you have the right building codeses and land use to manage risk, that risk can come down to the point where it's insurance and the private sector can manage future risks without defaulting back to federal programs. >> thank you, thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you. i recognize miss newton for five minutes. >> thank you very much. gad to see you back in the chair. good luck. m-fugate the nation's capitol barely escaped sandy. we were very grateful, just like we escaped the snowfall this time. but we know from all the scientists tell us we're headed for major disasters. they tell us that there's no longer debate about whether there is climate change. but about how to manage climate change. so i'm interested in issues and i will be talking to the next panel about predisaster mitigation. a member was asking about florida. i notice they're building right in the ocean virtually, trying to do some predisaster mitigation as they do. the. >> fema has been helpful with the 17th street levee. without that levee, the monumental core would be exposed to horrific flooding. rebuilding downtown washington in the monumental core and those steps have been taken. i certainly hope since those steps were taken and that levee was done before the final word was in on climate change i will be interested in your view as whether or not you think that levee could forestall a seriously sandy-like storm, but i'm also -- because it's taken so long, interested in the drawing of the flood maps. as i understand it -- this is what gives government a bad name. the drawing of the flood maps -- i'm sorry -- the work of the army corps of engineers for certification is done separately from fema or from other agencies. why can't that work be done concurrently? so that they look to see that the levee is constructed properly and they get on with the next step, rather than in some sequential fashion, which assures it will be delayed? >> as far as that, i will take that back to staff. i know we have been going around and round trying to get these built and get maps updated. part of what you gave us with the sandy recovery improvement act, things like the environmental historical reviews which the agencies used to do independently we now do concurrently. so we're taking small steps to look at the projected. the president has given good direction on this. when we're doing these capital improvement wed shouldn't be spending years doing the studies. we're not going to change the requirements but doesn't mean we should do each study and wait for the next study. so we're moving in that direction but not as fast as we should. as far as the protection for the future none of these designs are the 100% solution. they're designedded of risk anyone percent or mow and you identified one of our challenges. we always looked admit gaiting back to -- at mitigating back to a one percent or less risk. unfortunately we saw this in sandy. some mitigation work done after hurricane irene was done to level and sandy went over. i. so maybe one percent makes sense for a lot of things but for critical infrastructure like hospitals, fire stations maybe we should build to a higher standard. we're currently working with an agency on the federal side to look at, should we come up with a more stringent standard, not just building one foot above the base flood elevation perhaps even building higher not because we have dat to drive that per se but because of the uncertainty of the future data and these investments of literally tens to hundreds to billions of dollars of our future making sure we're building that future with that uncertainty. >> i very much appreciate what your saying. the monumental core is ir irreplaceable. i -- i realize this means further delay -- whether you could look into the 17th 17th street levee and see whether it should be altered now to make sure it meets standards you just indicated may be necessary. could i ask one more question in light of a recent tragedy that occurred here, the ramada tragedy where we lost how many life and more than 80 people went to the hospital. it was sadly reported, at least initially, looks like coordination in terms of communication, underground and aboveground and even underground was lacking. now, this is what is it, 13 years after 9/11 and of course, fema is there for natural as well as terrorist disasters. have you -- is fema considered this apparent failure, what it could mean not only in a real natural disaster but, heaven forbid in a terror act or disaster? are you involved in this disaster and helping ramada and the various agencies, city and federally involved to right this situation so that we are -- particularly underground there is the kind of communication that could enable rescue to occur? >> yes, ma'am. looking at this -- first of all i have a personal equity in this. that's the subway i ride home on. i was not in town. it went a little earlier than i normally depart but i am on that train monday through friday both coming in and going home. i know that very spot in the tunnel. i can tell you, anytime a train stops in a tunnel now, people start looking around. where before it was just look the normal pause. people are now looking around going, why are we stopped? our national region office work with all those entities itch ask we need to wait to get more from the investigation to find out what did happen. but we'll pledge our support through the national capital region to the district and to metro for the -- any assistance they require from us, both from planning, training and exercising to be better prepared fourth future incidents. >> thank you. the national capital regional office is currently involved with this investigation, and with this work. >> we're not involved in the investigation but we are there to support all the parties if they request us, and i think what will happen when we do get details and look at the recommendations of what to do better, we would be in a position to support both the district and metro if they request our assistance. >> thank you. >> thank you. chair recognizes the gentleman from louisiana,mer graves. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. fugate, thank you for being here today. i appreciate your testimony and share a lot of friends, paul rainwater and kevin davidson and others. in your testimony i notice you made reverence to the study that was done by congressional budget office note that every one dollar invested in mitigation activities saves three dollars in the course of the fema study, i notice last year in fema's budget is a recall they were zeroing out the predisaster mitigation. just curious, you made reverence in your testimony -- curious about your -- how fema has responded to the find little of those studies -- findings of the studies. >> the challenge for the plea disaster mitigation fund has been it's diminished over time and was increasingly being directed where it would go. you asked to us cut our budgets. each year. we had to make decisions where those cuts took place. we think mitigation is important. but we also knew the capacity to respond, recover and manage all the other programs were important, too. there's been a lot of talk about the predisaster mitigation and its role and the cost savings. i would also be pragmatic in saying those savings are realized if the structure you mitigate gets hit again. >> sure. i'll give you an example. hurricane katrina, if you add everything up from the 2005 hurricanes you get $150 billion in total spending. based on back of the envelope calculation we did in louisiana we intent $8 million on the front end we could have saved $80 million to $90 million in recovery. mrs. holmes norton made a very appropriate connection between the corps of engineers and fema. numerous instances, the corps of engineers has been direct bid congress to carry out various mitigation or resilience projects and some projectness the case of louisiana have been in the development faces in excess of 20 years during that period of time fema expended over a billion dollars in response or recovery claims in these same project areas, and one case i remember the -- where fema exceeded a billion dollars in payouts. the entire project was estimated to cost $586 million. can you talk a little bit about your coordination with the corps of engineers to ensure that these mitigation measures if predisaster mitigation is off the table, which personally i believe may be penny wise and pound foolish -- can you talk about the coordination there to ensure the resiliency of these communities and cost savings of your agency? >> we work very closely with the corps of engineers, both in flood insurance mitigation response and recovery. i also have to point out you can authorize a lot of projects. if you don't fund them they don't get built. if you go back and you pull the budget and you look at how many projects did the corps been authorized for and you look at the funding, there's a significant mismatch. again, if we were able to foretell the future and know exactly where disasters were happening we would probably be bert at strategizing where to make investments. but we have potential risk in places that have not seen a lot of disaster, yet the exposure is tremendous. so, again, we do work with the corps but i think it again comes back to, you're making very hard choices. you have to make appropriations decisions. there's no doubt. not enough money to do everything. and again, for the corps, there are often times more projects identified than they have funding, and they're having to make decisions across the states, the territories, where to make those investments. >> well, look, personally in regards to the corps of engineers the cut in funding is largely in response to their ability to perform which you may not share that opinion based on my personal experience but one thing we posed to fema years ago what the idea of having flexibility in hmgp chen the cower projects were not fun end about yielded to the taxpayer cost savings for disaster mitigation, yet fema -- were we unable to work that out. could you perhaps talk about that? as i recall there was a prohibition in using those dollars in cases where you had a federally authorized project in place, regardless of whether there was fund organize not. >> well, it's kind of goes back to authorization language and appropriations language. where we do have prohibitions against duplicating under finding sources. what we try to do and we had some success, where a project was not originally authorized by the corps and we were able offend but the corps was able to fund it. we were able to get good outcomes but i think it comes back to when we have nonduplication of federal efforts, one program is already authorized, maybe didn't have the funds to do it is again this is something the committee looked other at, there is additional language you want us to have in the stafford act? >> but the question i have is, we don't want to routinely supplant or get into augmenting other federal budgets if youer not funding it we don't want to look at a disaster fund to sidestep the appropriations of congress about something the committee can give is guidance on. generally it's because if it's already authorized in another program, there are limitations on what we are able to do. it would actually be exceeding congress' accident and authorization for us. so we'll work with the committee. i don't have a real issue with that but i also caution that some of the feedback i've gotten we don't want to open up a can of worms for the disaster relief fund is bypassing congress' intend by funding things come chose not to fund that year. >> thank you. the chair now recognize the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. costello. >> thank you mr. chairman. administrator fugate e i recall as a county commissioner following e -- either before or just following a storm of significant magnitude, speaking with my emergency services department and then describing the obligations they needed to undertake to apply for and ultimately process an application for people disaster assistance grants or grant the question is, looking at the recent gao report fema was criticized for the significant costs they incurred to administer disaster assistance grants. my question what it fema doing to reduce its own administrative costs as well as administrative burden often placed on states and locals who are trying to get the assistance to where it is needed for recovery? >> first up, one tool we have used aggressively has been moving away from putting in a lot of staff and renting temporary facilities on small-under disasters when we can work from the region. so so that's driving down costs. the other one this tool you gave us in the sandy recovery improvement act and that's allowing us to do alternative projects and being able to use an estimated cost and come to a resolution on a project cost without doing actual costs. i'd like to get rid of the oversight. i'd like to get rid of a lot of the burden. aid like to simplify the program dozen where we're able to make this determination and get funds to people appropriately you have given us those tools. on the other hand, you also hold us extremely conditionable for any overpayments or any ineligible cost. that requires a bit of oversight. so there's a balance there i think the commitee struck an extremely important balance with recovery and improvement act by allowing us to move away from all the actual costs where we have to continue to audit and review and survey the progress of the construction of a projection to being able to come to resolution on the front end make a determination agree to that and make the payout. i think we're doing this with the understanding that we have accountability, both to this committee and to the taxpayers to make sure we're only approving what was eligible, but at the same time significantly reducing our costs and overhead of managing that, and it's giving more flexibility to the local jurisdictions. this is a new tool. not every state has embased it. new jersey has not been as aggressive as number. could be because the projects in new york lent them to project. but we have seen in the brief, oklahoma was able to take advantage of these tools and it vastly sped up their experience with debris and cost reimbursement. so, knowing what we have had in the past and what we have had going forward, i have seen improvements. we need to constantly work on that to get it better. there's balance between too much burden and not being accountable to the taxpayer. >> i can certainly appreciate that balance. following up on the sandy recovery act which you mentioned, the increase in small project thresholds to $120,000 is one of the things you were alluding to in terms of simplified procedures. without suggesting it should be increased or decreased other could you share your observationed on if further efficiency expedited recoveries could be realize if that threshold were modified or are you comfortable with where that is? i think -- that -- >> i'm not a comfortable. i let staff talk me out of where i wanted to go. i thought that number should have been higher. we were looking at the percentage of project that would follow -- majority of them do but i think there's room to move it um. we have a lot of federal programs thats a mr. much larger dollar figures in simplified grant processes. i am comfortable that through the ig's oversight, and our ability to really focus in on what is eligible, that we can move that higher. i would also like to encourage input from our colleagues at the state and local levels through their organizations but i think it's something the committee should look at, is we don't want to just raise the threshold so we don't have any accountability. i think there's a lot of things that we could do with that would simplify the oversight with not significantly grow the risk in exposure for uneligible work and would drive down the cost and speed up recovery. so, what that number should be i would like to work with the committee. i think we can go higher than $120,000. i thought we should when we started this. but staff was able to pull the data and as the chairman says we want to be data driven weapon looked at data and the majority of the projects falling into this category fall into that. >> like 95%. >> i still think there is room november it higher. my ideal world will have small rejected up to the thrown of alternative projected and speed up disasters. the thresholds is a million dollars. i think again, we give states the flexibility to choose how they want to dot. if we can maintain fiscal accountable i'm knock opposed to raising the men thresh hold for mall project. i defer to my state colleagues how high it should be. ...

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