"Reforming FEMA: Bringing Common Sense Back to Federal Emergency Management"
2025-03-25
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Source: Congress.gov
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Transcript
Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management will come to order. Chair asks unanimous consent that the chairman be authorized to declare a recess at any time during today's hearing without objection, so ordered. Chairman also asks unanimous consent that members not on the subcommittee be permitted to sit with the subcommittee at today's hearing and ask questions without objection, so ordered. As a reminder, if members wish to insert a document into the record, please also email it to documentsti at mail.house.gov. The chair now recognizes himself for the purpose of an opening statement for five minutes. I want to thank our witnesses for being here today to discuss reforming FEMA and how we can bring common sense back to federal emergency management. After witnessing the federal government's response to Hurricane Helene last year and the recent Los Angeles wildfires, I, like many Americans, were shocked by many of the stories I heard coming from these communities. I know members of this committee have proposed and Congress has enacted reform after reform to make FEMA and the federal emergency management system work better. Despite these efforts, it seems that nothing improves, and this is not meant to be a beat down of FEMA, but we can't just keep going the way we've been and expect different outcomes. In fact, the bureau, correction, the bureaucratic labyrinth seems to have only become more complicated, causing unnecessary delays when disaster strikes. Taxpayers fund FEMA grant programs for states and local governments to invest in mitigation, preparedness, and response, yet many of these programs move too slow, preventing timely and effective action when it is most direly needed. I mean, for 46 years, Individual regions should have been reducing risk, the impact of emergencies, and the number of emergencies themselves.
And unfortunately, the metrics, including the cost and impact, have all gone in the wrong direction. What we saw in the case of Hurricane Helene is demonstrative of that fact. FEMA was ill-prepared. to support the response and recovery in the mountains of North Carolina. In California, we saw a lack of preparedness by state and local officials from a lack of water for firefighting to disorganization on the ground, despite literally billions of taxpayer dollars going to California for mitigation, preparedness, and firefighting.
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