Hearing

Our Committee has a critical role in emergency management, and that includes ensuring FEMA and federal emergency management programs are working as efficiently as possible to help communities hit by disaster.  In recent years – and even days – we have seen significant storms, floods, and wildfires across the Nation.

In the Midwest, we had above average snow in parts of the northern plains.  That, combined with severe storms and heavy rainfalls, resulted in severe flooding along the Missouri and Mississippi River systems, including in my district.  The flooding impacted tens of thousands of acres of farm land and caused significant damage to homes, communities, and infrastructure.

I’m glad that Missouri received a federal disaster declaration this week for Public Assistance, but more is needed. My constituents have experienced millions of dollars’ worth of damages to farms and personal property. I hope this is given full consideration as FEMA moves forward with recovery efforts.

Like other regions of the country hit by disasters, our state and local communities, first responders, faith-based and other organizations responded, but federal aid is sitting idle.  Federal resources will be critical to helping our communities recover, and it can’t get there fast enough.  Even as we work to recover from April flooding, as we speak we are experiencing more flooding across the state of Missouri.

It makes little sense for us to simply rebuild the same way over and over again.  That is why it is important for the reforms we passed in the Disaster Recovery Reform Act to be implemented quickly.  Helping communities build in mitigation upfront, streamlining the recovery process, and reducing the bureaucracy will save lives and reduce costs.

We are fast approaching hurricane season, and we are still recovering from a number of recent disasters across the Nation, including hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and wildfires.  Last year, my home state of North Carolina was hit by Hurricane Florence, Tropical Storm Michael, and other severe storms and tornadoes.

It is critical that we not only look at our preparedness for the next disaster but ensure reforms we enacted last year in the Disaster Recovery Reform Act are implemented, and implemented quickly.  These reforms are critical to ensuring all communities recover and rebuild faster, smarter and better.  In essence, we have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

As communities recover from past disasters and prepare for future disasters, we cannot afford to do things the old way.  We know, for example, for every $1 invested in mitigation, $4 to $11 are saved.  Ensuring the mitigation reforms are fully implemented as communities rebuild is crucial to making communities safer and reducing overall costs of future disasters.

And on the recovery front, we must continue to work to streamline and eliminate the red tape.  We appropriate billions in emergency spending when disasters strike, and our communities see the dollars are there, but the funds are too slow get to where they are needed.

We also know the longer it takes to recover, the more dollars are spent as the costs to rebuild go up.  Additionally, it doesn’t help that disaster funding is scattered across government, with uneven results creating inconsistencies, confusion, and waste.

That is why I co-sponsored H.R. 1984, the DISASTER Act, with Rep. Peters of California, and I am glad to note it was passed out of Committee earlier this month.  I hope this legislation gets passed quickly as it will give us vital data to understand how we use our disaster funds.

We must ensure our federal programs are streamlined, efficient, and coordinated.  This is critical not only to reduce costs but to help communities recover faster and smarter.  That’s why implementation of the Disaster Recovery Reform Act is so important.

FEMA has been providing us with quarterly updates on DRRA implementation, but this is not enough.  We need to ensure as many of these reforms as possible are implemented now and how Congress can help speed up implementation.  And if we need to look at additional reforms and ways to streamline the process, we need to know.

Through the Disaster Recovery Reform Act and the 2013 Sandy Recovery Improvement Act, we have provided authorities to FEMA that will speed up the recovery process, support common sense rebuilding, and cut red tape.  These reforms are designed to help communities better prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters.  We must begin applying them today.