That had 333 recommendations for reform to the Grant Programs at fema. Howev however, only found four permanent changes in which these recommendations came forward. Despite reform over a fiveyear period, little in the way of reform appears to have occurred. We had a hearing on this in 2013 in which we went through some of the various forms of waste occurring at fema. Even since that hearing, we still continue to have problems. 280,000 was recently spent for a bear cat Armored Vehicle in dover. We complained of a 600,000 bear cat Armored Vehicle for keen. I guess New Hampshire is ready for the next invasion. We also found recently or the inspectors have found 1. 7 million for unused radios and generators and 174,000 for unused radios in d. C. This is since we last meant to talk about waste. Every dollar wasted makes a difference two taxpayers. Right now, fema is more than 20 billion in debt because of the Flood Insurance program. Disaster spending often far outpaces the annual Funding Congress supplies leading to supplemental funding every year or so. Fema has provided more than 40 billion in preparedness grants since 2001. These grants flow primarily to state and local agencies who seem to be using these funds for things that they would never purchase with their own money, such as the 13 snow cone machines senator coburn found were bought by some michigan counties. Small communities are using these funds to buy Armored Vehicles. Local communities love federal grants because they dont have to tax their local constituents to pay for the spending. They simply hide the grants in the massive 19 trillion debt. For this reason, we must be diligent in insisting that local communities needs be largely paid for by local taxes. A significant amount of the spending is also due plik tif from other departments. 650 million handed out to the department of justice last year. I expect general roth, Inspector General roth will give us much more insight into some of these problems today. I hear a lot about fema from our constituents and about flood maps, a neighbor of mine has a house at the local lake and his house is about oh, i think its about 60 feet above the level of a dam and yet femas map has him in the flood area and asks him to spend more money on insurance although its hard to concede that its going to flood. I hear that the updated flood maps are not clear enough for county officials to make informed decisions. I hear it takes far too long for counties to receive dispersement from Disaster Recovery work. Perhaps if we were not buying bear cat Armored Vehicles, we would be able to take care of these problems. I would certainly welcome any comments at this time from our Ranking Member senator baldwin. Thank you, chairman paul, for working with me to hold this important hearing to examine the federal Emergency Management agencies efforts to assist states in preparing for terrorism and natural disasters. I would like to also thank our witnesses for being here today. We have learned from the attacks in brussels and paris and San Bernardino that we face critical and evolving threats as a nation. Not only do we face new risks of terrorism, we also face ongoing threats of natural disasters, including floods, hurricanes and tornadoes. Fema is charged with the Critical Role of ensuring our First Responders have the tools and recourses they need to prevent, prepare for and respond to all hazards. For nearly 40 years, fema has implemented robust programs to increase states capabilities to protect against disasters. Notably, fema provides critical federal preparedness Grant Funding as well as realtime training and exercises for First Responders. I think all of our states and indeed the country have benefited from this critical assistance. However, as i said in previous subcommittee hearings, we must continually assess and evaluate our programs to ensure that we are addressing our nations priorities in the most efficient and effective manner possible. Thank you again for being here, mr. Manning, to discuss ways that fema can continue to prepare First Responders for new and emerging threats as well as increase oversight of its programs. One area of particular importance to me and my home state of wisconsin and certainly many other states across the country is the significant increase in the transportation of crude oil by rail. At a higher rate than ever before, we are seeing this volatile substance traveling in rail cars past homes, schools and businesses. With increased volume comes increased risk and last november, two trains carrying Hazardous Materials derailed in the state of wisconsin spilling hundreds of gallons of crude oil in one case and thousands of gallons in ethanol in another. Fortunately, nothing caught fire and nobody was hurt. However, in one of the instances, 35 families were evacuated from their homes. We have seen other derailments across the country, including in illinois, west virginia, north dakota, alabama and virginia just in the past year. These instances pose an immense threat to communities in the environment. For example, this past weekend, a train derailed in wisconsin. No one was hurt and this particular these train cars were not carrying Hazardous Material. But its not enough to rely on luck. And we have to have sufficient plans in place to respond to derailments, including the worst case scenarios. Now, im proud to have included a number of provisions in the recently passed highway bill to improve First Responder access to information about these trains and its really critical that the department of transportation implement the reforms as soon as possible. However, we must do more to address the significance and security concern and its why i requested that the Inspector General audit whether the department of Homeland Security has established sufficient plans and coordination efforts to effectively respond to and recover from Railway Accidents involving Hazardous Materials. I look forward to the results of that audit and to hearing from our witnesses about what more we can do to respond to this emerging threat. I am also concerned by a recent department of Homeland Security office of general report that found that fema has not adequately analyzed recurring oig recommendations to implement permanent changes to improve oversight of Homeland SecurityGrant Program. Specifically, the ig found that while fema tracks specific audit recommendations on a statebystate basis, fema has no proactively discovered trends engaged in root cause analysis and implement corrective action over the entire program. Like the ig, i am concerned that states could be repeating the same mistakes and that we run the risk of money not being spent for it is intended purpose. Similarly, i am concerned about a gao report that found fema does not comprehensively collect or monitor the status of corrective actions made by federal departments that participate in National Level exercises. While fema has made progress in dress addressing this issue, more needs to be done to track corrective action to ensure that fema has an up to date outlook of National Preparedness. I look forward to hearing from you, mr. Manning, on how fema plans to improve oversight of the Homeland SecurityGrant Program and track the status of corrective actions made by federal departments. And i want to, again, thank chairman paul for providing us this opportunity to discuss these important issues and our witnesses for taking part in the discussion. Its my hope that when we leave here today, we have concrete ways to improve preparedness efforts for First Responders, strengthen oversight of the fema programs and deliver our nations priorities in the most efficient and ee specifffective possible. Thank you. Thank you. Our first witness today will be mr. Timothy manning from fema. Mr. Manning is the deputy administrator for fema for protection and National Preparedness. Before his confirmation, he was head of the new Mexico Department of Homeland Security and prior to that worked in a number of other Emergency Management and other capacities at the state and local level. Mr. Manning, thank you for your testimony today. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ranking member baldwin, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about how fema supports states in preparing for terrorism and natural disasters. As a First Responder, i can assure you that we at fema remain committed to ensuring that our citizens have the tools they need. In the past year alone, the u. S. Has experienced historic drought, malicious cyberattacks, extensive flooding, wild fires and shootings and long with other numerous events and the tragic events in paris and brussels shows how important it is for us to be ready to protect against and respond and recover from complex, coordinated terrorist attacks. With such a wideranging array of threats and hazards, we must Work Together to leverage all of our collective resources at every level of government in order to achieve our goal of a resilient nation. With that in mind, id like to tell you about the things that we are doing to address these challenges. Fema is working with every state in large urban area to identify their specific risks, set outcome based targets and assess their capabilities. They identify remaining gaps in their capability which then drive investments across their jurisdiction and in local resources and mutual aid planning. Providing 1. 6 billion to address capability gaps and risk and capability data to ensure that grant dollars are being used for preparedness. In addition to preparing grant funds, they helpful fill capability gaps through our training and assistance programs. They aid First Responders and Emergency Managers and mitigation and Response Recovery mission areas. In 2015 alone, fema achieved over 2 million course completions across all of our Training Programs which include the center for domestic preparedness in alabama, the Emergency National institute and partners with consortium, Homeland Security and Rural Domestic Preparedness Consortium in kentucky. We provide courses from online introductory level to highly specialized handson training for responders and fire and medical and other disciplines. Including the only federally chartered weapons of mass destruction training. As risks and threats continue to evolve, we must adapt our program to meet those pressing needs. Fema prepares for terrorist attacks working for the fbi and private sector partners to assist communities through a series of counterterrorism awareness workshops, participants from multiple disciplines discuss and analyze capabilities to respond to an attack involving a coordinated assault against multiple targets. They work through scenarios to identify gaps in their current plans and capabilities and develop mitigation strategies. Today, weve delivered 23 workshops with participation from more than 5,000 responders and officials, most recently in st. Louis, missouri. Another way that it has adapted to emerging threats with the rail shipment of crude oil since 2008 which has resulted in an increase threat of spills, explosions and other incidents. Fema collaborated with the 48 contiguous states, the epa and other components of the Homeland Security to define the biggest capability gaps related to crude Oil Incidents. This allowed us to target federal resources to the most critical needs. Fema offers multiple handson and Virtual Training opportunities related to Hazardous Materials and crude incidents through partnership with the Transportation Technology center, in pueblo, colorado, as well as the center for domestic preparedness. Fema worked with the usdot, coast guard and epa to design an exercise series known as Operation Safe delivery. Specifically addressing crude Oil Incidents. In total, nearly 1500 responders from around the country participated in either training or exercise related to crude Oil Incidents in 2015. We also recognize the past events are not an accurate way to target resources so jurisdictions around the country will be able to handle a wide range of incidents. Were currently analyzing the 2015 risk and capability data gathered from our state partners and well use that to drive future decisions on training, exercise and Technical Assistance, ensuring that we are effectively using the highest priority needs. We look forward to working with you all to that end. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify and i look forward to any questions the committee may have. Thank you. Our second witness is mr. John roth, Inspector General of the department of Homeland Security. Mr. Roth was confirmed in 2014 after two years of service as the director of the office of criminal investigations for the fda. Prior to his work, he served with distinction for some 25 years in the department of justice in places ranging from eastern michigan to paris, france. Thank you for taking the time for your testimony today. Good afternoon, chairman paul, Ranking Member baldwin and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me here to testify today. My testimony today will discuss our audit work with regard to fema preparedness grants. Fema, Homeland SecurityGrant Programs assist states in preparation for terrorist attacks and other emergencies. Femas responsibility for partnering with states to coordinate grants, training and exercise to help ensure preparedness. These Grant Programs fund a range of preparedness activities including planning, organization, equipment purchases, Training Exercise and management and administration. From fiscal years 2009 to 14, fema allocated 7. 6 billion in these grant funds to assist grantees if achieving program goals. We have completed audits of fema grants in 58 states and territories. In most instances, with some notable exceptions, the grantees worked in conformance with federal law. However, as with any large, diverse program, we continue to identify issues in awarding the expenditure and monitoring of the grants cht the issues we have found are best described in five categories. First, Poor Development of metrics. Many states did not develop fully measurable and achievable goals and objectives. Rather, they had many broad base goals and objectives with no timeline for completion and few concrete measures to determine if the goals and objectives were met. Second, incomplete or nonexistent and assessment of risks and capabilities. To help make smart decisions on how best to use the grant funds, states need to do a better job for what they face and develop appropriate capability targets to address them. Fema, in turn, needs to ensure that it reviews for accuracy and completeness. Third, untimely obligation of funds. We found numerous instances of fema awarding grants but then the states delaying and distributing the money to the recipient of the grant. We have had a number of instances in which months and sometimes over a year would pass before the states awarded the funds to the subgrantees. Fourth, insufficient management controls. States required to monitor activities to ensure compliance. However, we have found a number of instances in which the state had not adequately managed the grant process, leading to a lack of assurance that the funds were being spent wisely. Lastly, improper expenditures. Audits have found improper expenditures. These grants were awarded so that states and local agencies can prepare for and protect against acts of terrorism, major disasters and other emergencies. However, we found that grant funds were not always spent for their intended purposes or well supported. While fema has worked to improve the grant processes and oversight, our audits continue to find the same issues in state after state. In the audits resulting from these territories, 91 of the recommendations identified similar challenges year after year. Notwithstanding this, fema had not taken the lessons from our audits to create a systemic and institutional change in the manner in which it oversees the program. Fema tracks specific audit recommendation