[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
RECOVERY, RESILIENCY AND READINESS:
CONTENDING WITH NATURAL DISASTERS
IN THE WAKE OF CLIMATE CHANGE
(CLIMATE CHANGE PART III)
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 25, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-38
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Chairman
Carolyn B. Maloney, New York Jim Jordan, Ohio, Ranking Minority
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Member
Columbia Justin Amash, Michigan
Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri Paul A. Gosar, Arizona
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Jim Cooper, Tennessee Thomas Massie, Kentucky
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Mark Meadows, North Carolina
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Jamie Raskin, Maryland Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Harley Rouda, California James Comer, Kentucky
Katie Hill, California Michael Cloud, Texas
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Bob Gibbs, Ohio
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Peter Welch, Vermont Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Jackie Speier, California Chip Roy, Texas
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois Carol D. Miller, West Virginia
Mark DeSaulnier, California Mark E. Green, Tennessee
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota
Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands W. Gregory Steube, Florida
Ro Khanna, California
Jimmy Gomez, California
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
David Rapallo, Staff Director
Britteny Jenkins, Subcommittee Staff Director
Joshua Zucker, Assistant Clerk
Christopher Hixon, Minority Staff Director
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
Subcommittee on Environment
Harley Rouda, California, Chairman
Katie Hill, California James Comer, Kentucky, Ranking
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan Minority Member
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Paul Gosar, Arizona
Jackie Speier, California Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Jimmy Gomez, California Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on June 25, 2019.................................... 1
Witnesses
Mr. James Witt, Former Director, Federal Emergency Management
Agency
Oral statement............................................... 5
Mr. Christopher Currie, Director, Emergency Management, Disaster
Recovery & DHS Management Issues, on behalf of U.S. Government
Accountability OFfice
Oral statement............................................... 6
Dr. Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor of Meteorology,
Director, Earth System Science Center, on behalf of The
Pennsylvania State University
Oral statement............................................... 8
Dr. Judith Curry, President, Climate Forecast Applications
Network
Oral statement............................................... 11
Mr. Stephen Costello, Chief Recovery Officer, City of Houston
Oral statement............................................... 24
Adrienne Williams-Octablien, Director, Office of Disaster
Recovery, on behalf of Virgin Islands Public Finance Authority
Oral statement............................................... 26
Mr. Mark Ghilarducci, Director, California Governor's Office of
Emergency Services
Oral statement............................................... 27
Mr. Omar Marrero, Executive Director, Central Office of Recovery
and Reconstruction of Puerto Rico
Oral statement............................................... 29
The written opening statements and for witnesses are available
at: https://docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
The documents listed below are available at: https://
docs.house.gov.
* Email from William Happer to the Heartland Institute and NASA
Administrator Jim Bridenstine; submitted by Rep. Tlaib.
RECOVERY, RESILIENCY AND READINESS:
CONTENDING WITH NATURAL DISASTERS
IN THE WAKE OF CLIMATE CHANGE.
(CLIMATE CHANGE PART III)
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Environment
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:55 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn Office Building, Hon. Harley Rouda (chairman
of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Rouda, Hill, Tlaib,
Krishnamoorthi, Speier, Ocasio-Cortez, Comer, Higgins, and
Armstrong.
Also present: Representatives Jordan, Plaskett, and
Velazquez.
Mr. Rouda. The subcommittee will come to order.
Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a
recess of the committee at any time.
This subcommittee is convening our third in a series of
climate change hearings focusing on recovery, resiliency, and
readiness, contending with natural disasters.
I now recognize myself for five minutes to give an opening
statement.
As I mentioned, this hearing is the third in the series on
climate change that the Committee on Oversight and Reform
Subcommittee on Environment plans to hold this Congress.
After examining the history of the scientific consensus on
climate change and the public health effects of climate change
in our first two hearings, today the subcommittee turns to the
impact of climate change on natural disasters.
This subcommittee has three goals today.
First, we are going to illustrate how natural disasters are
made both more intense and more frequent due to climate change.
Climate change is real and we are constantly reminded of that
fact in terrifying ways. Just two weeks ago, it was reported
that Greenland lost 2 billion tons of ice on one day alone,
which portends a possible record-breaking season of ice melt
this year. Two billion tons of ice lost in a day, and we have
got people still telling us not to worry, that climate change
is not a problem.
The American people know better, and they know because they
are already suffering from the effects. Michael Mann, a
renowned climate scientist, is here today to explain how and
why we are seeing more intense hurricanes, more frequent
wildfires, and more devastating flooding because of climate
change.
Our second goal today is to examine how the Federal
Government could have responded better to the 2017-2018 spate
of natural disasters, steps the Federal Government has taken to
address these challenges, as well as explore ongoing recovery
challenges, not to point fingers and cast blame, but rather
because the best way to improve performance in the future is to
implement the lessons from past mistakes.
Third, we are going to assess how well FEMA and other
Federal agencies, as well as regional and local governments,
are prepared for not just the current hurricane and wildfire
seasons, but also for the long term, given that climate change
is causing more intense and frequent natural disasters. Every
single one of us in this room wants FEMA to succeed, and we
want to make sure that the agency has the tools and makes the
changes necessary to do so.
This subcommittee planned to have the Acting Deputy
Administrator of FEMA, Dr. Daniel Kaniewski, testifying here
today. This past Friday at 7 p.m., FEMA informed us that they
were uncomfortable with the structure of the witness panel and
thus would not be able to make it to the hearing. When
subcommittee staff contacted FEMA on Monday morning to try to
work out a solution, we were then informed that the doctor was
unable to testify due to medical reasons. We extend our
sympathies to the doctor and wish him a speedy recovery. The
subcommittee plans on having him before the subcommittee as
soon as he is able.
We do not need to look very far to see the personal costs
associated with natural disasters in the wake of climate
change. A member of this subcommittee, Representative Katie
Hill, was forced to evacuate her home last year as the Stone
Fire ravaged her hometown. She and her husband were lucky
enough to safely evacuate but, as we know, many were not so
lucky. In fact, the past two seasons, 2017 and 2018, were the
two deadliest wildfire seasons in U.S. history with major
wildfires across at least nine states. It is also worth noting
that these devastating fires also aggravate the impact of
climate change through the release of large quantities of
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into our atmosphere.
Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria hit Houston, the U.S.
Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico within just a month of each
other in 2017, and the consequences were devastating. You know,
we often hear our colleagues on the other side of the aisle
tell us that we act like the sky is falling. And in this case,
the sky was literally falling. Hurricane Harvey was the wettest
storm on record, dumping 33 trillion gallons of water on the
greater Houston area. Harvey was also the second costliest
hurricane on record, second only to 2005's Hurricane Katrina,
inflicting approximately $125 billion in damages.
Irma cost more than $65 billion and knocked out power for
as many as 16 million people. Maria was the deadliest storm in
Puerto Rico since 1928, killing over 2,900 Americans and
leaving the island without power. Puerto Ricans faced massive
food shortages, and suicide crisis hotlines in Puerto Rico
reported a 246 percent increase in suicide attempts from
November 2017 through January 2018, compared with the same
timeframe the previous year. Emails from the Department of
Defense discuss the discovery of mass graves in areas hit by
mudslides. The only hospital on one of the islands was
destroyed by Maria, and two years later, it still has not been
rebuilt.
I could go on and on about the devastation wreaked by these
disasters, and I know that every single person in this room's
heart breaks at these stories. Many of us remember feeling the
same way in August 2005, watching the shocking footage of the
city of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. That was 14 years
ago. I know some of us do not want to believe it, but these
record-breaking storms and wildfires keep coming ever more
often, ever more powerful.
Responding to natural disasters is a much different beast
than it was when FEMA was founded back in 1979. And one of the
reasons why response and recovery has gotten so much more
challenging since then is, obviously, climate change.
In March 2018, FEMA removed all references of climate
change from its four-year strategic plan. This decision is
simply baffling. If we all know climate change is happening,
surely it should factor into long-term strategic planning at
our Nation's largest and most powerful disaster response
agency. The Trump administration's own Fourth National Climate
Assessment expects that the intensity of hurricanes, typhoons,
wildfires and floods will increase as global warming continues.
So we need to face the problem and help FEMA get the support it
needs to adjust to this new reality and meet the needs of our
fellow Americans.
We have here with us today top emergency management
officials from Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Houston,
Texas, and California. And we are going to let them tell us
what they have seen and learned firsthand. Almost two years
after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria and after the first
record-breaking wildfire swept across the West, what do their
communities look like? How are people faring? What more needs
to be done? How can we in Congress help them get the money they
need to recover? And how can Federal agencies help them not
only respond to immediate needs in the aftermath of these
disasters, but rebuild their communities to be more resilient,
equipping them to better handle the next disaster? Because it
is not a question of ``if,'' it is a repeated question of
``when,'' ``when,'' and ``when.''
John Donne famously wrote that ``no man is an island entire
of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the
main.'' When one part of America suffers, we all do. When
people in Houston, in Puerto Rico, in the Virgin Islands, in
California lose their homes, their loved ones and their sense
of stability and community, we all feel it.
And so I want us to come out of this hearing today with a
plan to diminish the suffering. We are dealing with massive
stakes here. It is literally a matter of life and death. And at
its core, that is exactly what this series on the effects of
climate change is all about: life versus death. The choice is
clear and we are determined to make the right one.
Thank you very much, and I now invite my colleague, the
subcommittee's ranking member, Mr. Comer, to give a five-minute
opening statement.
Mr. Comer. Well, good afternoon. And thank you, Chairman
Rouda, for holding this hearing today.
This committee has a long history of bipartisan oversight
when examining the Federal responses to major natural
disasters. This includes work dating back to the examination of
the response to Hurricane Katrina and more recent efforts just
last year looking at reforms designed to enhance FEMA's ability
to quickly and efficiently respond when disaster strikes.
In 2017, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria hit the United
States. Combined with wildfires in California, these natural
disasters created an unprecedented demand for Federal disaster
response and recovery resources. Geographical and other
differences between the areas of the country most directly
impacted by each event presented distinct challenges and
required unique responses by local, state, and Federal
responders.
Since 2017 hurricane season, officials from all levels of
government, along with countless businesses and nonprofits,
have worked to repair roads, remove debris, restore power, and
rebuild communities.
I want to thank Mr. Currie from GAO for agreeing to appear
today at this committee hearing. I look forward to hearing
about changes and progress that FEMA has made in its effort to
prepare for extreme weather events and help localities deal
with their aftermath since Katrina and the 2017 hurricane
season.
Of course, I am interested also in new steps at Federal
agencies and we here in Congress can take to better prepare for
and respond to natural disasters of all types, what policy
changes will reduce future vulnerability, empower communities,
and allow for quicker and more seamless recovery.
I also want to thank Dr. Curry and Dr. Mann for providing
testimony to the committee today.
I think it is important to note it seems every major
weather event in recent years is followed almost immediately by
claims on cable news channels and social media that its
occurrence is directly linked to climate change. This
overheated rhetoric can serve as a distraction from focusing on
the proper role of the Federal response to these disasters,
which is why this hearing is convened.
It is clear from recent natural disasters that many parts
of the country are very vulnerable to weather extremes. It is
my hope that efforts to spur continued improvements in weather
forecasting will lead to an ability for communities to better
prepare. Still, natural disasters have been and will continue
to be a reality of the world that we live in. Inevitably the
United States will face another devastating storm or natural
disaster. That is why advanced planning, informed by lessons
learned from previous disasters is critically important.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you.
Now I want to welcome our witnesses: James Lee Witt, former
Director, Federal Emergency Management Agency; Christopher P.
Currie, Director, Emergency Management Disaster Recovery and
DHS Management Issues, Homeland Security and Justice Team, U.S.
Government Accountability Office; Dr. Michael E. Mann,
Distinguished Professor of Meteorology, Director Earth System
Science Center, The Pennsylvania State University; and Dr.
Judith Curry, President, Climate Forecast Applications Network.
Please stand and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Rouda. Please be seated.
Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the
affirmative.
The microphones are sensitive, so please speak directly
into them. Without objection, your written statement will be
made a part of the record.
With that, Mr. Witt, you are now recognized to give an oral
presentation of your testimony for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF JAMES WITT, FORMER DIRECTOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT AGENCY
Mr. Witt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member
Comer, thank you and the members of the committee. It is my
privilege to appear before the committee today to talk about
issues that are very important to our citizens and our
communities. These issues involve how we work together to
mitigate, prepare, respond, and recover from disasters. I have
dedicated my professional and personal career working with
communities on these issues. I had the privilege of serving as
Director of FEMA from 1993 to 2001. President Clinton
recognized that in the aftermath of a disaster, it was
important that our citizens could count on the government to be
there and help them when they needed it the most.
I came to FEMA during a time when this philosophy was not
often followed. I was tasked to rebuild an agency that several
Members of Congress called for abolishing after mismanagement
and poor response performance in disasters like Hurricane
Andrew and Iniki.
With strong support from Congress and the administration,
we proceeded to reform and rebuild FEMA. We were immediately
tested with the devastating Midwest floods of 1993. This
flooding impacted nine states. We streamlined our operations.
We responded well, but we want to engage individuals in a
program that would prevent the economic and social dislocation
caused by the flooding from ever happening again. With the
support of Congress, we engaged local citizens in a voluntary
program to buy out their homes in the floodplain. In Missouri
alone, we bought out over 4,000 homes and one whole town. This
town has flooded 41 times in its history. There were 18
businesses and 42 residences. And they all agreed to relocate
on a hill. The only one that did not agree to relocate was the
mayor. Throughout my time at FEMA, mitigation became the high
priority. The idea was to prevent people and communities from
becoming victims of disasters.
We initiated the program in 1997 called Project Impact:
Building Disaster Resistant Communities. The program provided
seed money to communities if they would take four simple steps:
form a committee of all community-wide partners; identify their
hazards; prioritize a plan to address each hazards; and
communicate their actions to reduce the hazards. We started out
with seven communities, and by 2000, we had 250 communities in
this program. Congress gave me $25 million for this program. We
had communities wanting to join this program. They did not want
any seed money. They wanted us to help them build the public-
private partnership to eliminate their risk.
The last summit we had in Washington for this program was
in 2000, and there were 2,500 local officials and volunteers
and partners that attended the summit. We had over 1,000
corporate and business partners participating like NASCAR, Home
Depot, and many others. It was a very successful program. And
one of the key supporters of this program was the private
sector, and the financial support of mitigation projects was a
major success.
And let me just say this in closing. When I was Director of
FEMA working with all the state directors and we had 340
Presidential disaster declarations the eight years I was there,
93 floods, 94 earthquakes in California North Ridge, the 1995
bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, plus numerous
hurricanes and tornadoes in between.
And one of the keys that helped states move much faster in
local communities was I put in a policy working with each of
the state directors of emergency management where they would do
their damage estimates and get them to us as quick as they
possibly could with the request for a Presidential disaster
declaration. We would advance them 50 percent of that estimate
up front so they could get the debris removed, get contracts in
place, and get to move because they are going to be audited
anyway. And then we would go back in and work with them on
damage assessments to see if it totaled to the amount that they
gave us. It made a big difference in the recovery efforts. They
could recover much faster and much easier.
One of the things that I think you could consider looking
at because FEMA has a short-term housing program. HUD has the
CDBG for the longer term. Look at how you could combine the
CDBG program under FEMA--combine it with the short-term and
long-term housing. I think that might help.
One of the things I would highly recommend, in closing, I
that FEMA be brought out of Homeland Security as an independent
agency again. There is too much red tape, too much bureaucracy,
and it does slow down the process.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you, Mr. Witt.
And I would now like to recognize Mr. Currie for five
minutes of oral testimony.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER CURRIE, DIRECTOR, EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT, DISASTER RECOVERY AND DHS MANAGEMENT ISSUES, ON
BEHALF OF U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
Mr. Currie. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member. It
is an honor to be here today to talk about GAO's past work on
disaster preparedness, response, and recovery.
Since Katrina, we have done work in almost every area of
FEMA's operations, and we have found that there has been major
progress in a number of areas, but there continue to be some
major challenges too. And unfortunately, the challenges and the
risks we face as a country moving ahead are not going to make
those challenges any easier. They are going to make them
harder.
Two-thousand-seventeen was a historic year--that has been
said many times--in terms of cost and impact. But I think it
would be a mistake to look at that as a one-time event. Five-
hundred-year floods seem to be happening every year. Wildfire
seasons are getting longer. And frankly, our infrastructure is
more expensive to repair. All of these things are leading to
additional disaster costs.
Also, as state and local capabilities are overwhelmed by
these events, the expectation for Federal assistance is only
going up. Since 2005, we have found that the Federal Government
has spent almost $450 billion--that is approaching half a
trillion dollars--on disaster response and recovery, and that
is just not a sustainable path moving forward in the future,
given our budget situation.
I would like to dive into some areas specifically on
response. Our work on the 2017 disasters was a mixed story. In
Texas, Florida, and California, what we saw was that years of
reforms after Katrina, a lot of preparedness efforts and great
coordination led to the ability to handle and deal with some
very big challenges that happened with Harvey and Irma and the
California wildfires. We were able to evacuate numerous victims
out of wildfire zones, flood victims in Hurricane Harvey, and
also restore power to 6 million people in Florida relatively
quickly. That is the good news.
The bad news is in the territories and Puerto Rico and the
Virgin Islands, we struggled. Frankly, FEMA struggled and the
territories were overwhelmed and struggled themselves too. I
want to be clear that FEMA has provided extensive levels of
support in both places. They provided more dollars in Puerto
Rico and the Virgin Islands together than all those other
states I mentioned combined. But that just shows the size of
the problem and the challenge that existed there.
So the other issue is the Federal work force that FEMA has
had, longstanding challenges we have been pointing out for
years on the inability to fully train the work force and retain
the number of people we need to handle a situation. And 2017
really exposed some of those gaps. A number of our
recommendations in that area continue to be open and are just
as valid today as when we made them over five years ago.
I would also like to talk about recovery, which is where we
are right now with the 2017 disasters. Anybody on this
committee that has had a Federal disaster in their jurisdiction
understands that these Federal recovery programs can be very
complicated, time consuming, and frankly, very frustrating. We
hear it all the time in our travels around to disaster
locations and in talking to state and locals.
Just two weeks ago, we found in a report that FEMA could do
a better job of helping elderly individuals and those with
disabilities to more easily enroll in their programs.
And we continue to see problems and challenges with FEMA's
public assistance grants. This is the largest pot of money that
goes to rebuilding. It is one of the most complicated grant
programs in government. It takes a long time for the money to
get spent, and there is a lot of back and forth. So the lack of
policies and procedures are confusing state and local officials
and frankly delaying long-term public infrastructure projects
from being implemented. And I think this slowness is a
frustration for both FEMA and the states and locals too.
The last piece I would like to end with is talking about
what do we do moving forward with these major challenges. We
and many others have talked about the importance of building
disaster resilience. If we are going to spend this kind of
money, how do we spend it in a way that we are not going to
have to spend it again later rebuilding the same
infrastructure, the same houses? But it has been a challenge.
The Federal Government spends most of its disaster resilience
dollars after a disaster, which means it goes only to locations
impacted by that disaster and essentially means that mother
nature dictates where we spend our resilience dollars. I think
we need to change that.
There has been some progress in that area. The recently
passed DRRA last year provided FEMA with an additional pot of
money to allocate before a disaster hits so we can be more
strategic about where we spend that money. Also, FEMA is
starting to work on better plans to be able to invest those
resilience dollars before the disaster hits so we know what to
do and we are not just surprised after it hits.
So this completes my prepared remarks. I look forward to
the questions.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you, Mr. Currie.
Just a point of clarification. You said $450 billion I
think. What was that timeframe?
Mr. Currie. Since 2005.
Mr. Rouda. Since 2005. And is that FEMA outlays only, or is
that all costs associated with natural disasters in the U.S.
during that timeframe?
Mr. Currie. That is Federal disaster recovery and response
costs.
Mr. Rouda. Okay. So no private insurance is involved----
Mr. Currie. Exactly, right.
Mr. Rouda [continuing]. in that number whatsoever, as well
as other infrastructure costs from local and state
municipalities.
Thank you very much.
I now recognize Dr. Mann for five minutes of oral
testimony.
STATEMENT OF DR. MICHAEL MANN, DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF
METEOROLOGY, DIRECTOR, EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE CENTER, ON BEHALF
OF THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Mann. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. My name is Michael Mann. I am Distinguished
Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State University and
Director of the Penn State Earth System Science Center. And I
do have to say I feel a little bit today like I am at the
center of curry sandwich.
[Laughter.]
Dr. Mann. Sorry.
The primary focus of my research is understanding earth's
climate system. I am a fellow of numerous scientific societies.
I was awarded the Hans Oeschger Medal of the European
Geophysical Union in 2012, the Friend of the Planet Award from
the National Center for Science Education in 2014, Stephen
Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication
in 2017, Award for Public Engagement with Science from the
American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2018,
Climate Communication Prize from the American Geophysical Union
in 2018. And this year, I received the Tyler Prize for
Environmental Achievement. I have authored more than 200
publications and four books. I am perhaps best known for my
paleoclimate research two decades ago that produced the iconic
or now iconic hockey stick curve, demonstrating the
unprecedented nature of recent warming.
My research in recent years, however, has focused on
extreme weather events. I would like to talk about the
substantial progress that has been made in this area in recent
years, and I would also like to emphasize we are using the term
``natural disasters,'' but in many cases there is absolutely
nothing natural about the disasters we are talking about. We
are not saying they have been caused by climate change. We are
saying that climate change has worsened them. That is what the
research says.
There is an emerging consensus, for example, now that we
will see stronger and wetter hurricanes, and we are seeing them
already. Hurricanes get their energy from warm ocean waters,
and the oceans are warming from the buildup of greenhouse gases
in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels. The
strongest hurricanes have gotten stronger. Over the past few
years, we have witnessed the most intense hurricanes on record
for the globe, both hemispheres, the Pacific, and as of the
summer of 2017 with Hurricane Irma, the open Atlantic with
Maria, a similarly strong and devastating storm coming just
weeks later.
With the recent post-season upgrade and status, Michael, my
namesake, is now established as the land-falling category 5
hurricane in U.S. history, having devastated parts of Florida,
the Florida panhandle, when it made landfall last October.
Warmer air holds more moisture. The amount of water vapor in
the atmosphere has increased due to human-induced warming. That
extra moisture leads to heavier rainfall. We know that rainfall
rates and hurricanes are expected to increase in a warmer
world, and we are living that reality now.
Sea level is rising because ocean water expands as it
warms. Ice sheets melt as it warms. Sea level rise is
accelerating, and storm surge from hurricanes now rides on top
of higher seas to infiltrate further into our coastal cities.
Our own work has shown, for example, that the combined
effect of global sea level rise and intensifying hurricanes has
taken Superstorm Sandy--a Sandy-like storm surge from what
would have been a 500-year event before we caused warming of
the planet to a 25-year event. And if we continue with business
as usual, burning of fossil fuels, by the middle of this
century, it will become a five-year event. That means a Sandy-
like storm surge on average once every five years.
Heavier rain and higher sea levels combine to cause
compound flooding in major hurricanes. We saw this effect in
play in the catastrophic flooding in 2017 with Harvey and in
2018 with Florence. Summer 2018 saw an unprecedented spate of
extreme floods, droughts, heat waves, and wildfires break out
across North America, Europe, and Asia. A warmer ocean
evaporates more moisture to the atmosphere, so you get worse
flooding from coastal storms. Think again Hurricanes Harvey and
Florence. Warmer soils evaporate more moisture into the
atmosphere, so you get worse droughts.
Global warming shifts the extreme tail of the bell curve,
so you get more temperature extremes, more frequent and intense
heat waves. Think summer 2018 all around the northern
hemisphere.
You combine heat and drought, it is not rocket science. You
get worse wildfires, and think about what we are seeing in the
western U.S.
Running climate models both with and without human impacts,
we can investigate whether a particular event was likely to
have been made more common, more frequent because of human-
caused warming. And in that sense, we are able to attribute
certain events to the extreme nature of these events to climate
change. The scorching European heat wave last summer, according
to one such attribution study, was made more than twice as
likely because of human-caused warming. The record rainfall in
North Carolina with Florence, according to another study, was
increased by as much as 50 percent by human-caused warming.
Some of the impacts of climate change on extreme weather
events, on the other hand, are too subtle to be captured by
current generation climate models. In a study my co-authors and
I published in the ``Journal of Science Advances'' recently, we
identified a key factor behind the rise in extreme summer
weather events, like the ones that played out in summer 2018.
And it is not captured by current generation climate models. We
showed that climate change is causing the meanders in the
summer jet stream to become more pronounced, and they are
tending to remain locked in place for longer stretches of time.
Under these circumstances when, for example, a deep high
pressure ridge, as we call it, is stuck in the western U.S.,
you get that extreme heat and drought and wildfires, while
downstream you get a trough, what we call a trough, a low
pressure center associated with the unprecedented rainfall that
we saw over large parts of the eastern U.S. last year. We are
seeing something very similar now happening right now this
summer.
Well, climate change contrarians love to point to
scientific uncertainty for justification for inaction on
climate, but uncertainty is a reason for even more concerted
action. We already know that the projections have historically
underestimated the rate of ice sheet melting and the rate of
sea level rise. And now it appears they are underestimating the
increases in extreme weather associated with climate change
because of processes that are not well captured in the climate
models. Uncertainty is not our friend here.
The consequences of doing nothing grow by the day. The time
to act is now.
Climate change is pain. Anyone who tells you differently is
selling something, most likely fossil fuels.
Mr. Rouda. Dr. Mann, I need you to conclude your comments.
Dr. Mann. Absolutely. There we are.
Mr. Rouda. Excellent timing. And good luck with your new
business venture of curry sandwiches, the next fast food trend.
Dr. Mann. I have two partners.
Mr. Rouda. With that, I now recognize Dr. Curry for five
minutes for oral testimony.
STATEMENT OF DR. JUDITH CURRY, PRESIDENT, CLIMATE FORECAST
APPLICATIONS NETWORK
Dr. Curry. I thank the chairman, ranking member, and the
subcommittee for the opportunity to testify today.
I have devoted 4 decades to conducting research related to
extreme weather events and climate change. As President of
Climate Forecast Applications Network, I have been helping
decisionmakers use weather and climate information to reduce
their vulnerability to weather disasters.
The paradox of weather disasters is that they are at the
same highly surprising, as well as quite predictable. We should
not be surprised by extreme weather events when comparable
events have occurred during the past century. The sense that
extreme weather events are now more frequent or intense because
of manmade global warming is symptomatic of weather amnesia.
The devastating impacts in 2017 from Hurricanes Harvey,
Irma, and Maria invoked numerous alarming statements about
hurricanes and global warming. However, it is rarely mentioned
that 2017 broke an 11-year drought in U.S. major hurricane
landfalls. This major hurricane drought was unprecedented in
the U.S.'s historical record.
Of the 13 strongest U.S. land-falling hurricanes in the
historical record, only three have occurred since 1970, Andrew,
Michael, and Charlie. Four of these strongest hurricanes
occurred in the single decade following 1926.
Recent international and national assessment reports
acknowledge that there is not yet evidence of changes in the
frequency or intensity of hurricanes, droughts, floods, or
wildfires that can be attributed to manmade global warming. My
written testimony cites chapter and verse from these reports
regarding those specific conclusions.
The elevated wildfires in the western U.S. since the 1980's
is partly caused by state and Federal policies that have
resulted in catastrophically overgrown forests. Comparable
levels of wildfire activity were observed earlier in the 20th
century.
The U.S. National Climate Assessment Report recognized that
the Dust Bowl era of the 1930's remains the benchmark period
for extreme drought and heat in the U.S. historical record.
A few comments regarding projections of future extreme
weather.
My company provides seasonal forecasts of extreme weather.
For the 2019 hurricane and wildfire seasons, we expect an
active hurricane season with substantial landfall risk, whereas
we expect the western wildfire season to be relatively quiet.
Up to at least 2050, natural climate variability is expected to
dominate future hurricane variations rather than any warming
trend. The most important looming factor is an anticipated
shift to the cold phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal
Oscillation. This shift is expected to overall reduce hurricane
and wildfire risk for a period of several decades.
With regard to projections to 2100, models from the NOAA
laboratory in Princeton show a substantial decrease in the
number of hurricanes in response to global warming. Their
models show an increase of about 5 percent in the maximum
intensity of Atlantic hurricanes. Owing to the large natural
variability of Atlantic hurricanes, any influence of manmade
global warming would not be noticeable for a number of decades.
Blaming extreme weather events on manmade climate change
and focusing only on what to do after lives and property have
been destroyed deflects from understanding and addressing the
real sources of the problems, which in part includes Federal
policies. Possible scenarios of incremental worsening of
weather and climate extremes do not change the fundamental fact
that many regions of the U.S. are not well adapted to the
current climate regime. We have an opportunity to be proactive
in preparing for weather disasters. Rather than focusing on
recovering from extreme events, we can aim to reduce future
vulnerability by evolving our infrastructures, policies, and
practices. Adaptation strategies that promote probability
protect against extreme weather events while at the same time
providing other benefits to human or natural systems.
Apart from addressing infrastructure issues, improvements
to Federal and state policies can substantially reduce the
damage from wildfires and land-falling hurricanes.
Further, tactical adaptation practices incorporating
tailored weather forecast products can help mitigate the
damages associated with extreme weather events.
Places that find solutions to their current challenges
associated with weather disasters will be well prepared to cope
with any additional incremental stresses from future climate
change.
This concludes my testimony.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you, Dr. Curry.
At this time, the chair recognizes the Congresswoman from
California, Katie Hill for five minutes.
Ms. Hill. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you all for being here today.
In 2017 and 2018, California experienced the two deadliest
wildfires in the state's history, and as the chairman
mentioned, one of them was right in my district and in my back
yard.
Due to climate change, these wildfires in the American West
will burn longer and stronger as time goes on. Dan Costa, the
former Director of the Air, Climate, and Energy Research
Program at EPA has said--and I quote--there are no longer
wildfire seasons. There are just wildfires all the time. And we
see that at home every day.
And this reality brings with it unprecedented challenges
for Federal disaster response.
So my question is, Mr. Currie, what challenges has FEMA
faced that are unique to wildfire response as opposed to, say,
hurricane response.
Mr. Currie. A great question. I think one of the things
that has happened over the last five years, we have seen more
actual Federal declared disasters for wildfires than we have
seen in the many years prior to that. And so that just opens up
a whole other level of programs and resources that FEMA brings
to bear.
A great example is housing. FEMA is responsible in a
federally declared disaster for providing short-term housing
for survivors. In California, we had problems that we have not
faced in other parts of the country. The traditional housing
options like trailers, short-term rentals, even hotels were
just not an option because they do not exist. You cannot put
them in those locations, or frankly, rental properties are
extremely expensive. So the wildfire issue, particularly in
California, is forcing FEMA and the rest of the Federal
Government to rethink how it does post-disaster housing. That
is just one example.
Ms. Hill. Thank you.
And then I guess, Mr. Witt, just to sort of followup on
that, during your tenure as FEMA administrator, what role did
the agency play in wildfire response, and what percentage of
your resources would you say you spent on wildfire response? I
am looking for kind of a comparison over time.
Mr. Witt. One of the things that we tried to do--I do not
know how successful it was, but we started trying to implement
a dead fuel brush removal program, which would eliminate the
intensity of a fire. But most of the land out there is U.S.
Government land with the exception around some homes.
One home in the Laguna Beach fire that Governor Wilson at
that time and I was at was up on top of a mountain, and he had
put clay tile roofs on. He extended the eve of the house over
four feet out. He put fire-resistant siding on, and he planted
fire-resistant shrubs with the rock and the gravel and stuff
around his house. His house was the only house that survived
that wildfire.
So there is ways we can mitigate it. There is ways that we
can keep people from becoming victims. In one of the cities out
there, Oakland, I was at with Mayor Brown at the time, there
was a wildfire there that had burnt 300 homes, and this
community came together and built back. And everything in that
community was built fire-resistant, even less grass, more rock,
more fire-retardant shrubbery. And they had a box at the corner
of every block. And they did it right.
Ms. Hill. Thank you. I just do not have a whole lot of time
left.
But, Mr. Currie, FEMA has issued an after-action report
regarding the agency's preparations in response to the 2017
hurricane season. Are you aware of a similar report being done
by FEMA regarding the agency's preparations in response to the
California wildfires in 2017 and 2018?
Mr. Currie. Yes, ma'am, I am. I believe it was actually
issued just last week or finalized last week.
Ms. Hill. Great. So we can expect to be seeing it soon.
Mr. Currie. Well, you have to ask FEMA for that, but yes.
Ms. Hill. But you believe it is important for that report
to be released.
Mr. Currie. Absolutely because the after actions are going
to be very, very different from the after actions from water-
related events and hurricanes.
Ms. Hill. Of course. I want to make sure that we see that,
and I do know that the GAO is also examining issues related to
FEMA's response.
Mr. Currie, GAO is conducting a review of FEMA's response
to six wildfires between 2015 and 2018. At the current moment,
how would you assess FEMA's state of preparedness for the 2019
wildfire season?
Mr. Currie. Well, let me just say I think from a response
perspective--and we have talked to--I know they are sitting
behind me--the state of California about this and several
counties in the fire-affected regions. You know, we hear great
things about FEMA's coordination and preparations and response.
The state and local officials tell us that FEMA is there. They
give them all the support and the help they need.
I think the challenge area that we see is really when you
get into recovery. For example, I mentioned the housing issue
earlier. Debris removal has been a massive challenge with fire
because unlike on the east coast with hurricanes, you cannot
just move the house and start rebuilding right away. You have
to excavate. It is toxic soil after a fire. So the debris
removal challenge was a huge problem. So I think they are still
working through a lot of these recovery challenges.
Ms. Hill. I am all too aware of the housing crisis in
California on so many fronts.
But anyway, thank you all so much for your time.
And I yield back.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you.
I now recognize Representative Comer for five minutes of
questioning.
Mr. Comer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My questions will be directed to Dr. Curry. Dr. Curry, the
majority released a memorandum explaining the purpose of this
hearing, and it states the following. I want to read this to
you. Quote: due to climate change, the number of hurricanes
that reach categories 4 and 5 in strength has roughly doubled
since the 1970's. And, quote, there are no longer distinct
wildfire seasons. There are just wildfires all the time. End
quote.
Do you agree with the claims stated in the majority memo,
and do you think the existing scientific evidence supports
those claims?
Dr. Curry. With regard to the doubling of the number of
category 4 and 5 hurricanes, I was actually a co-author on that
paper in 2005 by Webster, et al. Since that time, serious
issues have been raised regarding the quality of the data in
the earlier part of the record, particularly prior to 1988. So
most scientists are disregarding that earlier data.
The big jump really occurred between the 1970's and 1990's.
So if you throw out the earlier data, you no longer have much
of a jump.
A recent article by Klotzbach and Landsea dated that with
more 10 more years of data, and they found a very small
increase in the percent of category 4 and 5. If you add 2015
and 2016, which their study did not include, the numbers bump
up because of a very big El Nino year really juices the Pacific
hurricanes, which are more than half.
So basically in understanding this we are hampered by not
having a long enough data record to really interpret what is
going on.
Mr. Comer. Dr. Curry, what do recent international and
national climate assessment reports have to say about the links
between manmade climate change and wildfires, hurricanes,
floods, and droughts?
Dr. Curry. Well, I cited this in my written testimony.
Specifically with regard to the U.S., the National Climate
Assessment based on the historical record did not find links
between flooding, heat waves, hurricanes, wildfires, and so on
basically by virtue of there being periods earlier in the 20th
century with at least as bad statistics, in some cases much
worse, like the 1930's for heat waves and droughts.
Mr. Comer. You have used the term ``weather amnesia'' as a
way of describing the current public statements among some
scientists and politicians that extreme weather events are now
more frequent or intense and attributable to manmade global
warming. Can you discuss what you mean when you use the phrase
``weather amnesia''?
Dr. Curry. Well, people forget, and it does not even take
long for them to forget. We had a bad tornado spring this year,
a lot of tornadoes, but nothing particularly unusual with
regards to previous years. And between 2012 and 2018, the
tornadoes were way below average. Then all of a sudden, we get
one bad year and it is global warming. The 1980's and--the
1970's and 1980's was a very benign period for bad weather. But
you do not have to go back too far to get some seriously bad
stuff in the 1950's and the 1930's and so forth.
Mr. Comer. My last question on this series. I wanted to
mention the California wildfires. I own a lot of forestland in
Kentucky. It is private land. We manage our forestland. We do
not have forest fires out there. I say that, and I will get a
call saying I have got a fire on some of my land right now.
Many people have suggested that a big part of the problem
in California wildfires is the lack of forest management, the
fact that there is so much debris underneath the trees that
fuels the intensity of the fire. Mr. Currie made the statement
that most of that land is Federal land. So there are a lot of
rules and regulations that prevent forest management.
I just wanted to know your thoughts on that.
Dr. Curry. Well, I have heard--one of my clients, who is an
emergency manager for a regional power provider, went out to
California to consult with Pacific Gas and Electric after all
that. And he said the whole state is a tinderbox. I mean, you
cannot remove any--even if a tree falls over and dies, you
cannot remove it. So all of that fuel builds up, and of course,
it is going to blow. Okay. So there must be some regulations
that can be changed so all that can be cleared out.
When I announced that I was testifying in this hearing, I
got emails from several firefighters in California who emailed
me and said tell them it is not climate change. It is these
crazy regulations allowing people to build houses where they
should not, allowing all this wood to buildup. We need to do
something. I mean, blaming this on climate change is just sort
of wasting everybody's time in trying to deal with this.
Mr. Comer. Thank you.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you.
I now recognize Congresswoman Tlaib for five minutes of
questioning.
Ms. Tlaib. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, the panelists, for being here.
In March 2018, under the leadership of former FEMA
Administrator Long, FEMA eliminated all references to climate
change from its four-year strategic plan.
Back in Michigan's 13th congressional district that I
proudly represent, we know climate change is happening. We see
it all the time. We have had one of the wettest years on record
with widespread flooding across my district, which has,
recently this year, forced the Governor to declare a state of
emergency.
So just to make sure--this is a question for all of you all
on the panel--is there anyone on this panel who believes
climate change is not currently happening?
[No response.]
Ms. Tlaib. Okay. That is wonderful. Everyone on this panel
believes climate change is occurring, and yet FEMA removed all
references to it in its plan for the next four years. The
decision concerns me greatly. An agency tasked with responding
to natural weather-related disasters cannot remove all
references to changes in climate and expect for you all to do
your job or for the Department to do their job. FEMA pretending
climate change does not exist is not an action plan.
So, Mr. Witt, as a former Director of FEMA, and Dr. Mann,
as a climate scientist, does it concern you that FEMA removed
climate change from its strategic plan? And is it important for
FEMA to commit to incorporating climate change in their long-
term planning?
Mr. Witt. I think climate change is a big part of what we
are seeing today. Last month, the month of May, we had 500
tornadoes. A year ago May, there was 240. We just had a
historic river flood on the Arkansas River. It was the biggest
flood since 1945, 16 to 18 feet higher than it crested in 1945.
We see at my farm we got 6 inches of rain in two hours, which
has never happened. We have seen 10 to 20 inches of rain in
Iowa and Oklahoma and in the Midwest. And it is causing an
extreme amount of flooding. So we are facing the sea level
rising, everything from California to the east coast. That is
part of climate change. Our ocean is warming. We are having
more hurricanes because the ocean is warming and they are much
stronger and much more devastating.
So, yes, I believe it is happening.
Ms. Tlaib. Do you think this affected FEMA's effectiveness
in responding to natural disasters when they chose not to
consider climate change when developing a strategic plan?
Mr. Witt. I do not think it affected their response to
disasters. I think it affects them in the way of the long-term
planning and how to mitigate it for the future. So that has to
be a qualifier.
Ms. Tlaib. And, Dr. Mann?
Dr. Mann. Yes. I wanted to correct a number of fallacies
that we have heard today when it comes to the connection
between climate change and extreme weather events.
First of all, you sometimes hear this myth about there
having been a supposed hurricane drought, and there is some
sleight of hand going on there because what is going on--
Superstorm Sandy was a strong category 3 and then weakened to a
category 2 hurricane off the U.S. east coast. Now, it did go,
as they say, extra-tropical. It technically was no longer a
hurricane when it made landfall, but it was spinning off the
east coast for several days as a strong hurricane building up a
very large storm surge. And as we know, it was the storm surge
that was so devastating to the Jersey coast and to New York
City. So it is extremely misleading when you hear statements
like that.
And, of course, Michael, my namesake, is one of a very
small number of land-falling category 5 hurricanes. It is the
latest--the latest in the season we have ever seen that. So
there is a clear climate change----
Ms. Tlaib. Absolutely. And thank you, Dr. Mann. I will tell
you misleading comments seem to be a norm here, and I am making
sure that I do not allow anybody to think it is normal to
mislead. It is the same thing as lying.
On June 14, 2019, emails obtained by the Environmental
Defense Fund clearly show the culture of climate denial in the
Trump White House. William Happer, a member of the President's
National Security Council and the chair of the reported White
House Panel, convened solely to question the scientific
evidence on climate change, sent emails to the Heartland
Institute, a climate change denying interest group, that he
wanted to figure out a way to make his ideas, quote, more
useful to a wider readership.
Mr. Happer also emailed NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine
to say that NASA should, quote, systematically sidestep the
science on global warming.
So, Mr. Chairman, if I may, I would like to enter these
emails into the record.
Mr. Rouda. So moved. Without objection.
Ms. Tlaib. I wish this was not shocking, but unfortunately,
this is part of the course of this administration and the White
House and the fossil fuel dark money groups conspiring to deny
reality and build a misinformation campaign designed to
threaten the future of our children.
And so with that, I yield the rest of my time and thank
again all of you for your important conversation on this.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you.
The chair now recognizes Congressman Higgins for five
minutes of oral questioning.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Currie, you mentioned in your opening statement--you
referred to disaster resilience and pre-mitigation investment.
And, Mr. Witt, you strike me as a gentleman of great common
sense and background.
I ask you each. Is it a wise investment of the people's
treasure as we look forward regarding response to disasters,
that as a nation we invest in pre-mitigation strategy and
disaster resilience as opposed to a proactive response and a
post-disaster response? Generally speaking, would it be a wise
investment of the people's treasure for us to shift the
strategy? Yes or no, you two gentlemen?
Mr. Currie. I can start. I think all of them are important,
but I think what we have found--and I know it is something you
understand living in Louisiana--that we are already spending
the money as a Federal Government after the disaster strikes.
Mr. Higgins. And again, I thank you and I have limited
time. But just, generally, do you agree that as a Congress, we
control the people's treasure? We control the purse. Should we
place a greater emphasis on pre-mitigation disaster resiliency
preparedness?
Mr. Witt?
Mr. Witt. Yes, sir.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you very much.
Dr. Curry, you had explained your position on forest
management. Many of us agree. Essentially we have allowed fuel
to accumulate at the base or our forests, especially on Federal
lands. And we are seeing tremendous forest fires as a result.
The reference reminds me of after Hurricane Harvey, I
deployed with civilians into Texas in rescue operations. And
the last gentleman that we rescued was on a Thursday night that
I was able to participate in--I had to return to Louisiana. It
was about 2 o'clock in the morning. We rescued an elderly
gentleman. And when he found out that I was a Congressman,
because I certainly did not look like one and needed to shower,
he came to me and wept. He said, Congressman, I have lived in
my home since 1968. He said we have never flooded. He said I
have seen this much water fall, but I have never seen this much
water rise.
And this made it crystal clear to me that as a Nation, at
the local, state, and Federal level, we have failed to maintain
our water management systems. My office has since placed a
great emphasis on this successfully. God is not dropping more
water on us it seems to me, but we as a nation have failed to
maintain our systems.
In forest management, it is a similar story. You have homes
burning not because lightning is striking more often or because
people are more careless with fire. It is because we have
allowed this fuel to accumulate, and we should respond to that
as a nation with common sense.
Regarding the occurrence of natural disasters as is perhaps
related to climate change, on a geological timescale I ask any
of you, referring to my colleague's question, has there ever
been a time in earth's history according to earth science--yes
or no. According to the geological record and earth science,
has there ever been a time in earth's history when the earth
was not experiencing climate change? Is anyone going to say no
to that?
[No response.]
Mr. Higgins. I will take that as a yes.
So there is certainly sufficient record to show that the
window where we are looking at here--call it 100, 150 years--is
very narrow. Regarding communications and awareness, right now,
we all have instant communications worldwide. One-hundred-fifty
years ago, how would an American in California know that
Louisiana had experienced a hurricane? Or how would an American
in New York 150 years ago know that Americans in California had
experienced wildfires? There is a great deal of time difference
regarding the acknowledgement of these events.
So as a Congress, it is our job to respectfully listen to
the wisdoms that are presented to us from both sides of this
argument. And I suspect that the truth lies somewhere within
the middle.
Dr. Mann. Could I answer your question?
Mr. Higgins. Which question, sir?
Dr. Mann. You just asked about how we know about the past
history of hurricanes and wildfires.
Mr. Higgins. No, I did not ask that.
Dr. Mann. You certainly implied that.
Mr. Higgins. It is my time and I reclaim it.
Dr. Mann. Thank you.
Mr. Higgins. So I would just say, Mr. Chairman, thank you
for holding this hearing and let us move forward with sober
minds as we invest the people's treasure and respond. Thank
you, sir.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you.
I now recognize Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you.
Dr. Mann, I will let you respond.
Dr. Mann. Thank you very much.
With regard to hurricanes, I actually co-authored an
article in the journal ``Nature'' about 10 years ago where we
used geological information from what are known as sedimentary
deposits, overwash deposits left behind by ancient hurricanes.
So we can actually reconstruct the history of land-falling
hurricanes along the U.S. east coast, along the Caribbean. And
so we have this rich archive of information that tells us that
in fact the increase in intensity that we are seeing today does
appear to be without precedent as far back as we can go.
With regard to wildfires, a group of tree ring specialists
a few years ago reconstructed the history of wildfire as well
as drought in California. And their finding is that both the
increase in wildfire and the drought, the epic drought that we
saw in California over the last decade, are without precedent
as far back as those records go, more than 1,000 years.
Let me also, if I may, comment on this claim that----
Mr. Higgins. If the gentleman will yield, Mr. Chairman.
Since Dr. Mann is responding to a question I did not ask----
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Sorry. I reclaim my time. It is my time.
Thank you. I reclaim my time.
Mr. Higgins. I ask the gentlelady to----
Mr. Rouda. The chair recognizes Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.
Mr. Higgins. I did not ask that question.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you. And, Mr. Chair, I would like
to----
Mr. Higgins. Dr. Curry should be allowed to respond.
Mr. Rouda. The chair recognizes Congresswoman Ocasio-
Cortez.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you.
Mr. Rouda. This is her time, and her time will be restored
due to the interruption.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I
appreciate it despite the attempts to take my time away where
there is no statute in the rules where that is appropriate or
acceptable.
Mr. Higgins. I believe that did not happen.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. I will move on.
So the Puerto Rican island of Vieques is located nearly
eight miles from mainland Puerto Rico. In the aftermath of
Hurricane Maria, my grandfather died. And the island of Vieques
is where 9,000 American citizens live. These Americans are
still suffering today almost two years after Hurricane Maria
devastated the island.
On November 29th, 2017, more than two months after
Hurricane Maria, an individual whose name has been redacted
emailed Michael Byrne, FEMA's lead official in Puerto Rico.
This person wrote--and I quote--we have limited to no
communications. Without the grid, no cell tower or land line is
available. Internet service needs power, and like it or not,
this is the means of global communication. Our water system is
currently run on emergency generators. The key word here is
``emergency.'' They need regular power. Without potable water
and proper sewage treatment, we will get sick.
This email was then forwarded to what appears to be a
different individual's email address. And the FEMA
administrator at the time, Brock Long, was copied on this
email.
The second individual writes, I know you have had a rough
time in Houston, but at least you had competent people in
charge of the response. We have incompetent people in charge
here and are getting no response to our urgent needs, first of
all, restoration of power.
Mr. Witt, if you were leading FEMA's recovery to Hurricane
Maria, what would have been your plan for addressing electrical
outages on the island of Vieques?
Mr. Witt. Well, I was not in place at the time that it
happened and was not coordinating in the response.
But let me just share this with you. Hurricane Marilyn that
hit the Virgin Islands--I flew down there and it destroyed
power, water, infrastructure, airport. And we were able to get
things up and running extremely fast.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you.
I also want to ask you about the island of Vieques' only
hospital, which was destroyed during the storm and to this day
has not yet been rebuilt. The ``New York Times'' published a
story in April of this year that reported that pregnant women
in Vieques were forced to travel by boat or plane to the,
quote, big island 8 miles away to give birth, while dialysis
patients had to travel three times weekly by boat or plane for
more than a year after Maria hit. According to that same ``New
York Times'' report, the hospital remains to this day, quote, a
shuttered wreck of rust and mold.
Mr. Witt, when you were the leader of FEMA, was it a
priority for you to rebuild hospitals destroyed by hurricanes?
Mr. Witt. Yes, it was. Earthquakes as well. There is a
company that we work with actually looking at Mozambique right
now that can fly in a hospital that they set up. It is a 500-
bed hospital, as well as mobile clinics.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you.
And is there anything FEMA could be doing now that it is
not currently doing to help rebuild critical infrastructures
like hospitals in Puerto Rico?
Mr. Witt. You know, I have been to Puerto Rico several
times since the hurricane and done some work down there,
particularly in the housing, as well as the energy side. You
know, it hard for me to answer that question by not being there
in the middle of it.
Would I have done it different? I do not know. I cannot
tell you because I have not really looked at the problems or
what happened there.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. I understand. Thank you very much.
I yield the rest of my time to the chair.
Mr. Rouda. I am sorry. Did you yield back? The chair grants
you an additional 30 seconds.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you very much.
Mr. Witt--or rather, Dr. Mann, as climate change worsens,
we know through scientific consensus and modeling that more
environmental disasters are to come. Correct?
Dr. Mann. Absolutely.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And, Mr. Witt, FEMA is--as its name
implies, it is the Federal emergency management agency. Its
primary responsibility is in the short term and emergency
management of natural disasters. Correct?
Mr. Witt. It is short-term and long-term.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Short-term and long-term.
Do you believe that the agency is fully resourced and is
actively planning for the full-term transition of the United
States infrastructure to accommodate for sea level rises and
other changes brought by natural disasters and climate change?
Mr. Rouda. The time has expired, but you can answer the
question.
Mr. Witt. I think that there is a lot that needs to be
done, as Mr. Currie had said earlier, particularly on the
training side of employees and new employees that has come on
board. We had a very, very important training program when I
reestablished FEMA and rebuilt it. And I think also that with
the amount of people that they have on board now, which I had
2,600 employees, full-time employees--and I think they have got
almost 9,000 now. But they have had 220 Federal disasters in
two years. I had 340 in eight years. So you can tell that it is
changing very quickly and climate change is a big part of it.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you.
The chair now recognizes myself for five minutes of
questioning.
And I would like to start with just making sure we level
set here. There has been some discussion, as the ranking member
suggested, that after a natural disaster or a significant
storm, that there is media that says it occurred because of
climate change. And hopefully that is not happening, and I have
not seen anybody actually say that. So I would agree with him,
if it is being said, that is incorrect.
But what is correct is that climate change is causing
storms and weather events to be bigger, badder, meaner, and
more often. Is there anybody on the panel that disagrees with
that comment?
Dr. Curry does not agree with that comment. So, Dr. Curry,
if I understand your testimony correctly, you are suggesting
that there is either no evidence of human-caused climate change
or insufficient evidence of human-caused climate change. Is
that correct?
Dr. Curry. No. I thought your question was specifically
with regards to natural disasters and extreme weather events.
Mr. Rouda. Well, let me ask you, do you believe that
humankind is causing climate change?
Dr. Curry. As a scientist ``believe'' is not in my
vocabulary.
Mr. Rouda. Do you have scientific data that supports the
belief?
Dr. Curry. No.
Mr. Rouda. The outcome, the evidence.
Dr. Curry. No. I provide assessments of----
Mr. Rouda. Would you agree that if we doubled the burning
of fossil fuels, that that would arguably increase temperatures
faster in our atmosphere?
Dr. Curry. Sure. The question is how much relative to
natural variability. That is the big question.
Mr. Rouda. Agreed. There is natural variability.
But, Dr. Mann, what would your take be on that? Is there a
point where we can agree that burning of fossil fuels impacts
climate change and global warming?
Dr. Mann. And despite what Dr. Curry has said, there is in
fact a robust consensus, and the various assessment reports she
referred to actually demonstrate that there is a detectable
human impact on these natural disasters, on hurricanes, on
wildfires, et cetera.
Now, when she talks about these natural cycles and she
referred to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, well, I
coined that term more than a decade and a half ago. And it is
based on research that I published at the time.
More recent research by my group and myself has shown that
what many of these scientists are attributing to a natural
cycle is in fact just the impact of humans on the climate, but
the irregularity--because we had an increase in blocking of
sunlight from pollutants in the 1950's through the 1970's, so
there was sort of a plateau in warming. Then it accelerated
when we passed the Clean Air Act. So if you subtract off a
line, you get what looks like an oscillation left over, but it
is not a real oscillation. It is the irregularity of our
impact.
Mr. Rouda. You mentioned the Clean Air Act. I am just
curious because I want to have the testimony here. Climate
change, global warming aside, is there anybody here that does
not think that renewables over fossil fuels would improve the
air and the health of Americans?
[No response.]
Mr. Rouda. Well, that is good to see.
So, Mr. Currie, let me turn to you next. Can you elaborate
more on just a better understanding of the economic and human
impact due to climate change and global warming as we continue
with the hockey stick that Dr. Mann has pointed out?
Mr. Currie. Yes, sir. Well, at GAO, we are the auditors of
the Federal Government. So we approach this from the issue or
the perspective of the fiscal exposure that climate change
risks present to the Federal Government. And when I say the
Federal Government, ultimately I also mean the taxpayer. So I
will give you a couple examples.
Disaster aid is one I talked about. I mentioned the $450
billion, taxpayer money, that goes from the Federal Government
to state and local entities to help response and recovery.
But it is not just disaster aid. National Flood Insurance
is backed by the U.S. taxpayer. It is $21 billion in debt. They
owe the Treasury $21 billion, and that is after almost $16
billion was erased last year. It is an insolvent program. It
does not take in enough money to cover its costs. The same with
crop insurance.
The list goes on and on in terms of the Federal
Government's stake in this from a financial perspective.
Mr. Rouda. And we are actually seeing conversations taking
place right now on Wall Street that is asking that certain
bonds take into effect the inherent risk of climate change. So
they certainly are seeing the impact that climate change,
human-caused climate change, can have on municipalities.
We are also seeing the insurance industry and the real
estate industry looking at the potential impact on future home
sales, future home building, the ability to insure those homes
in certain areas, which is going to layer in additional
economic costs. Often it is not going to be factored in to what
we look at when we look at the impact of these storms.
I have got a few seconds here left. Dr. Mann, I would just
like to ask you are there any other inconsistencies in the
testimony you would like to address?
Dr. Mann. Yes. I want to talk about the issue of wildfires
because there was this claim made that most of the increase in
wildfires--in fact, I believe it was our President who claimed
that it was just a matter of needing more rakes at some point.
And we heard sort of a semblance of that claim earlier here in
this room today.
There are scientists who have very carefully looked at the
impact of changing land use patterns, changing fire suppression
practices, and the impact that both those factors and the
human-caused factor of climate change has played. And what they
conclude--if you look at the tripling--and yes, there has been
a tripling in the extent of wildfire in the western U.S. over
the past few decades--no more than half of that can be
explained by any of these other factors. At least half of it is
due to the warming and the drying and the perfect storm that
that creates for these massive, very fast-spreading wildfires.
Mr. Rouda. And prior to the invention of rakes, what did
humankind do with these forests?
Dr. Mann. Slash and burn.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you.
That concludes my questions.
I would like to thank the first panel for their testimony,
and you are free to go.
As the witnesses are switching out, please be aware that
you may receive additional written questions for the hearing
record, and we would appreciate your prompt and thorough
response.
We are going to take a short break, and then we will
welcome our final witnesses and get started again. So let us be
back together in about two minutes.
Again, thank you very much for being here today.
[Recess.]
Mr. Rouda. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for
the quick change-around in the final witnesses here, and thank
you for your patience.
We have with us Stephen Costello, Chief Recovery Officer of
the city of Houston; Adrienne Williams-Octalien, Director,
Office of Disaster Recovery, Virgin Islands Public Finance
Authority; Mark Ghilarducci--hopefully I got that right--
Director of California Governor's Office of Emergency Services;
and Omar Marrero, Executive Director, Central Office for
Recovery, Reconstruction, and Resilience, Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico.
Please stand and raise your right hands, and I will begin
by swearing you in.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Rouda. Let the record show the witnesses answered in
the affirmative.
Microphones are sensitive, so please speak directly into
them.
Without objection, your statement will be made part of the
record.
With that, Mr. Costello, you are now recognized to give an
oral presentation of your testimony for five minutes.
STATEMENT OF STEPHEN COSTELLO, CHIEF RECOVERY OFFICER, CITY OF
HOUSTON
Mr. Costello. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and
honorable committee members. My name is Stephen Costello for
the record. I am the Chief Recovery Officer for Houston's Mayor
Sylvester Turner. Thank you for the opportunity to testify
today.
I have provided the committee written testimony. As such my
statement today is really going to be some highlighted issues.
First of all, to talk a little bit about Houston. Houston
historically has experienced flooding generally six to eight
years on occasion and isolated because Houston is such a very
large city of over 620 square miles. As such, because of the
infrequency of flooding, drainage infrastructure investment was
never a priority until 2015, 2016, and Harvey in 2017 where
Houston had experienced 500-year floods all three years. The
hurricane particularly had impacted not just an isolated area
of the city of Houston but the entire city. And now our people
live in fear every time there is a forecast of rainfall.
This leads us to the main question of today's panel. Are we
safer today than we were pre-Harvey? And the answer is a
resoundingly no. This assessment is based on recovery efforts
and the Federal process that I will highlight in my testimony.
But in the interim, the city has taken the lead toward
resiliency consistent with Mayor Turner's goal, and I quote. We
cannot just build back for future failure. We must build
forward for more resilience.
And before I expand upon the challenges of recovery and
Federal process, I want to highlight what the city has been
doing since Harvey.
So post Hurricane Harvey, we have implemented some of the
most restrictive flood plain development ordinances in the
Nation, requiring all new structures to be constructed 200 feet
above the 500-year flood plain, which is contrary to FEMA's
minimum standards of 1 foot above the 100-year flood plain. If
these rules were in place prior to Harvey, over 84 percent of
the homes that flooded during Harvey would have been protected.
We have also revised our design criteria relative to
detention and drainage for future development and its impact on
its neighbors. In 2018, the voters of the city of Houston
passed and reauthorized a $6 billion funding for urban
infrastructure, specifically geared toward drainage. And in
that same year, $2.5 billion was approved by the residents of
Harris County of which encompasses the city of Houston for
flood damage reduction.
The city has also developed a green infrastructure
incentive program to encourage developers to build green
infrastructure. We are in the process of preparing a climate
action plan, and we are working on a citywide resiliency plan.
So those are what the city is doing to try to get to
resiliency because we know we have to do our part. We cannot
rely on the Federal Government.
My following comments, however, are going to relate to the
progress of recovery.
Houston interfaces with two primary Federal agencies in the
recovery process: HUD and FEMA. And my comments now are just
going to be focusing on FEMA. But I do want to say this on
behalf of Mayor Turner. We really appreciate the role the
Federal Government plays during a disaster, and we want to
thank FEMA for everything that they have done.
But I want to talk specifically about public assistance.
FEMA's public assistance program allows for reimbursement of
debris removal, emergency response activities, repair,
reconstruction, and mitigation efforts on city-owned
facilities. However, multiple reviews, extensive document
verification on concurrence of dollar amount and scope of work
presents major delays in obtaining these dollars for recovery.
We have estimated over $2 billion of impact to our facilities,
and as of today, only $336 million are in process. But please
note that of the $336 million, $160 million was advanced to us
immediately after Harvey for debris removal and for sheltering,
which is what Mr. Witt had described that FEMA had changed
their policies years ago for that, and we appreciate that. But
that being said, in 22 months, we have only processed an
additional $22 million of recovery. So when we talk about FEMA
long-term, we describe it to our community as long-term
investment. It is not going to be 1 or two years. It is going
to be five or six.
The other program that FEMA has is the hazard mitigation
grant program. And in September 2017, FEMA had given the state
of Texas $870 million for hazard mitigation grant projects. To
date, we have yet to get $1 for the city of Houston. We have
three projects that have been in the process of getting work
done, getting scopes approved so that we can start the work
effort. The way the Federal Government can help in this process
is to allow applicants to do pre-award activity, to allow
applicants to do phasing of construction because the process in
hazard mitigation is focused primarily on two phases. You
design an entire project and permit it, and then you go to
construction where a lot of these projects can be phased,
particularly when you are in the time zone relative to getting
these projects done within a 36-month period, particularly when
you are seeking right-of-way and acquisition of property.
So I will conclude my testimony there and look forward to
further questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you, Mr. Costello.
The chair now recognizes Ms. Williams-Octalien for five
minutes of oral testimony.
STATEMENT OF ADRIENNE WILLIAMS-OCTALIEN, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF
DISASTER RECOVERY, ON BEHALF OF VIRGIN ISLANDS PUBLIC FINANCE
AUTHORITY
Ms. Williams-Octalien. Good afternoon, Chairman Rouda,
Ranking Member Comer, and members of the committee. I am
Adrienna Williams-Octalien, and I am the Director of the Office
of Disaster Recovery in the Virgin Islands. And I do thank you
for the opportunity to provide testimony this afternoon on the
status of the recovery from our 2017 Hurricanes Irma and Maria
and the challenges that climate change poses to preparedness
and recovery.
The 2019 hurricane season is one that is being faced with
great trepidation, and the residents of our territory are armed
with a greater understanding of preparedness. We are still
vulnerable and aspects of the infrastructure are still
compromised.
The Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency,
VITEMA, began preparedness efforts and they have validated
shelters and confirmed the availability of commodities and
delineated plans for dissemination of resources in the
aftermath of any event that we may face. Governor Albert Bryan,
Jr. has issued a directive to all of the agency heads,
particularly the leads of the emergency support functions, to
ensure readiness for this hurricane season.
The Virgin Islands Office of Disaster Recovery was
established in February 2019 and serves as the center of
coordination for all recovery efforts. Efforts are at full bore
to bring our critical infrastructure and facilities online. To
date, we have opened the temporary facilities at the Myra
Keating Clinic on the island of St. John. We are working to
finalize the temporary facilities at the Juan F. Luis Hospital
on St. Croix and completing the damage descriptions to finalize
funding for the repair of the Roy Lester Schneider Hospital on
St. Thomas. Residents are still, however, being flown off-
island to access critical care that otherwise cannot be
provided by our health care facilities. This has a detrimental
financial impact to the territory's public health system as
much needed revenue to support our institutions leave with
these patients.
All our schools were put back in session by incorporating
the usage of temporary modular classrooms and the consolidation
of schools. We continue to work with FEMA to approve industry
standards to finalize our fixed cost estimates and for the
replacement or repair of all our schools.
The greatest progress has been made in the area of energy.
Over 1,100 composite poles have been installed to date and
engineering work has commenced for the undergrounding of power
lines. Plans are also underway to help build photovoltaic
plants with battery storage with the micro grid concept in
mind.
Housing, though, remains an area of great concern, as we
still have families with compromised roofs covered with
tarpaulins which have exceeded their life expectancy. Through
the FEMA STEP program, the territory has been able to repair
7,200 homes with over 3,500 homeowners still in need of
repairs. The EnVision program funded through CDBG-DR is slated
to address the remaining homes.
The territory appreciates the efforts of Congress and the
provisions of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 that provided
special considerations for the complexities of recovery efforts
in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
The additional assistance of $27 million, along with the
special considerations for inclusion of additional damages in
the repair versus replacement calculations, and the Additional
Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Relief Act, 2019, will
prove invaluable in our efforts toward resilience.
The territory is working to understand its vulnerabilities
and devise strategies to mitigate the effects of climate
change.
VITEMA, in conjunction with the University of the Virgin
Islands, is developing a comprehensive hazard mitigation and
resilience plan for the territory. The plan will be the result
of a multi-sectoral effort that integrates the principles of
resilience, sustainability, and climate adaptation.
The territory understands the potential for the
intensification of storms and through legislation mandated the
auto adoption of the IRC and IBC building codes. This will
ensure that the territory is building to the latest standards.
FEMA provided recovery advisories after the storms to offer
additional guidance for reconstruction.
And for the first time, the Virgin Islands was added to the
U.S. Drought Monitor map. Drought monitoring began this month.
The territory is still a long way from recovery. Navigating
through the bureaucratic maze of the available Federal funding
is daunting, and relief is never provided as quickly as needed.
The 2017 hurricanes not only wreaked havoc on our critical
infrastructure but to the treasury of the Virgin Islands as
well. The financial impact of the back-to-back storms was
$11.25 billion, and the projected revenue loss from the storms
is $576 million. Projects funded under FEMA's public assistance
program are expected to cost $5 billion with a 10 percent
match, requiring total, approximately $500 million.
We thank you for this opportunity, and we look forward to
working closely with our Federal partners to continue to move
our recovery forward. Thank you.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you, Ms. Williams-Octalien.
And, Mr. Ghilarducci, you now have five minutes for oral
testimony.
STATEMENT OF MARK GHILARDUCCI, DIRECTOR, CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR'S
OFFICE OF EMERGENCY SERVICES
Mr. Ghilarducci. Okay, great.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.
Thank you for inviting me today to provide you all with both
context and perspective of California's challenges as we
continue to recover from a series of climate-driven
catastrophic disasters.
California has been severely impacted by the effects of
climate-driven events in the form of drought, tree mortality,
atmospheric rivers, floods, debris flows, and of course, major
wildfires, all record-setting events and all of those in the
last two years.
In 2017 and 2018, we had over 3 million acres burn in
California, roughly 17,000 wildfires, eight of those resulting
in catastrophic losses. As well, that resulted in 160
fatalities due to these disasters. The Camp Fire alone in 2018
in Butte County was the most destructive wildfire in
California's history: 19,000 homes and businesses destroyed,
more than 30,000 people displaced, more than $12 billion in
insurance losses, 85 fatalities, the loss of generally an
entire town, including the critical infrastructure, the
services, and the businesses.
It is important to note that California's wildfire season
is now almost year around. Climate change acts as a force
multiplier. The state's most impactful drought in modern
history occurred between 2011 and 2017, resulting in long-
lasting environmental impacts that have set up dynamics for
ongoing fire situations.
For example, the tree mortality phenomenon that has killed
over 147 million trees throughout the state has compounded the
risk of mega-fires.
Overall, 15 of the 20 most destructive fires in California
have occurred since 2000, 10 of the most destructive since
2015. This trend is expected since 2015. This trend is expected
the continue, as outlined in California's Fourth Climate Change
Assessment, which projects the estimated burn area for fires to
increase by 77 percent by 2011--2021. Sorry.
And 25 million Californians live in the wildland area,
which are considered either very high or extreme in this area
in what we call the urban-wildland intermix.
Since 2017, we have received nine major Presidential
disaster declarations since 2017. Those six were for fires;
three were for atmospheric rivers and storms. 55 of 58 counties
in California were included in these major disaster
declarations, and for California to receive a major disaster
declaration, there needs to be at least $60 million in public
infrastructure destroyed, as well as other eligible costs.
One significant challenge, of course--and it has been
mentioned earlier--is the issue of debris and debris management
after these fires. Debris management after these catastrophic
fires is not like hurricane debris. The debris here includes
massive amounts of toxic materials, asbestos, and the material
of the homes incinerate down to the ground. It includes
concrete, steel, cars, fuels, and other kinds of hazardous
materials.
Debris removal is essential, however, for the economic and
overall recovery of disaster-affected communities. So far more
than 4 million tons of debris have been removed from public and
private properties since 2017. And the October North Bay fires
alone, 2017 constituted the debris operation since the 1906
earthquake. That was a big deal until 2018, which we were
followed by Butte County's Camp Fire, which resulted in now the
single largest debris mission ever managed by the state, over
$2 billion in cost to clear more than 22,000 sites.
And the impacts to individuals have been profound as well.
Cumulatively across the counties, more than 83,000 Californians
have been assisted by disaster recovery centers.
And I do want to thank FEMA for their tremendous
partnership, FEMA region 9, and FEMA has been a great partner
for us. In 2017, more than 28,000 households were approved for
FEMA individual assistance, totaling more than $23 million in
aid. And in 2018, more than 31,000 Californians were eligible
for individual assistance registration.
Following both 2017 and 2018 disasters California
established the long-term housing task force to address the
complexities that we have with housing. As you know, California
already has a housing shortage. Disasters make that much worse,
and when you lose an entire town in an area with less than 1
percent vacancy prior to the fire, you have a major problem.
You actually have a homeless problem. It exasperates the
situation dramatically.
Housing solutions for survivors need to be scalable and
flexible to diverse populations and geographics,
environmentally sustainable, and cost effective to the impacted
local and state governments.
FEMA's direct housing program revolves around manufactured
housing units. It is an old-school approach. It needs to be
modernized. Local ordinances and public health and safety
hazards often prevent survivors from placing these MHUs on
their own property. Identifying suitable locations for group
sites is time consuming, is costly and in fact, the cost to
deliver and hook up a single mobile home ranges from $100,000
to $500,000 a unit. That is just crazy. Right? So this money
could be better spent expanded into other more flexible areas.
Mr. Rouda. If you could wrap up your testimony, please.
Mr. Ghilarducci. Great.
Last, let me talk about quickly some key lessons learned
and one of them is in the area of emergency communications and
sharing information with the public.
Our cellular networks are not hardened to withstand natural
disasters. This was highlighted in 2017 during the fires, which
we saw a total of 341 cell sites go offline. And in 2018, we
saw a total of 489 cell sites go offline. They were off for
many days, not available during the initial hours of the fires,
and they hindered the ability to get in the 911.
Mr. Rouda. Mr. Ghilarducci, I will bring that up in my
questions with you. I need you to wrap up.
Mr. Ghilarducci. With that, I will stop there, and then be
open for questions later.
Mr. Rouda. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Marrero, you have five minutes of oral testimony. Thank
you.
STATEMENT OF OMAR MARRERO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTRAL OFFICE
OF RECOVERY AND RECONSTRUCTION OF PUERTO RICO
Mr. Marrero. Thank you, Chairman Rouda, Ranking Member
Comer, and members of the committee. Thank you for the
opportunity to discuss Puerto Rico's recovery, resilience, and
readiness in the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria. On
behalf of Governor Ricardo Rossello, it is my honor to be here
today.
Certainly Hurricanes Irma and Maria presented Puerto Rico
with several very serious challenges. The impact to the island
and our unique environment was catastrophic. Our
bioluminescence bays, El Yunque National Forest, our amazing
beaches, our agriculture, and our extraordinary geographical
features were all devastated.
Given the role of tourism and agriculture in the economy,
billions of dollars of revenue were lost just as Puerto Rico
was beginning to address a manmade disaster: its bankruptcy.
Just as importantly, the hurricanes exposed the
vulnerability caused by decades of under-investment and
deficient maintenance in our critical infrastructure, a
vulnerability this body addressed with a one-time allowance in
the legislation to reset our most critical infrastructure to
industry standards. We cannot thank you enough, and we
recognize the importance of being good stewards of this
taxpayer investment.
These catastrophic storms taught us that the lives, safety,
and security of our residents, as well as the environmental
state of our island, depends as much on our local capacity to
respond to the immediate emergency as it does in the capacity
to master a proportionate and timely response from the Federal
Government. We continue to build and develop, in coordination
with FEMA, these capabilities.
Let us be honest but clear. We are much appreciative of the
help that we have received from the Federal Government,
including FEMA and HUD.
Twenty-one months into our recovery with over $100 billion
in damages, we are keenly aware that climate change is making
natural disasters more frequent, more damaging, further
underscoring the need to build back in a more resilient and
intelligent manner.
Puerto Rico remains especially vulnerable to the impact of
climate change-enhanced disasters due to our unique
geographical position. And, unfortunately, a series of
decisions by Federal agencies have slowed our post-disaster
recovery compared to the post-disaster recovery in other
jurisdictions stateside. This includes, among others,
inconsistencies in FEMA's guidance with respect to the
implementation of section 428, a very recent change in the way
FEMA will perform its role in the management and recovery
funds, causing additional delays, reducing Puerto Rico's
ability to lead the recovery, and further impeding our ability
to meet FEMA's October deadline for the fixed cost estimates, a
failure to agree on a definition of industry standards and a
refusal to allow Puerto Rico to use its own licensed engineers,
as was done in New York and New Jersey, and less significant
obstacles continue to create the impression that we are neither
trusted nor permitted to lead our own recovery. FEMA says that
recovery is federally supported, state managed, and locally
executive process. Unfortunately, this has not been the
experience of Puerto Rico.
The island depends on FEMA, and while we remain a territory
on the good will of this hallowed body, despite every effort of
Congress to help us recover, today Puerto Rico has only 46
permanent work projects approved. Forty-six. In contrast in the
same timeframe, over 13,000 projects were approved for
Louisiana and Mississippi in the wake of Hurricane Katrina,
certainly a figure that is mind-blowing.
Despite the challenges, Puerto Rico is optimistic,
determined, and full of potential as we consider our ever-
changing global environment and how we must work together to
protect our planet. I am proud to report that Puerto Rico is
emerging as a leader in sustainability and renewable energy of
the United States. For us, it is not an option. It is not a
luxury. We have a social responsibility for future generations
to do so.
Our goal is simple, is to avail ourselves of this moonshot
opportunity to re-imagine, revitalize, and rebuild Puerto Rico
so it can develop its full capacity for the benefit of the 3.2
million U.S. citizens who live there and for America as a
whole, a responsibility we share with the Federal Government.
And we are fully committed to execute it.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you, Mr. Marrero. Can you clarify one
thing? You said the number of projects that have been funded
for Puerto Rico----
Mr. Marrero. I am sorry. When I referred to the 46 figure,
I am referring to the fixed cost estimates that we have agreed
with FEMA up to this date.
Mr. Rouda. And you compared it to the Mississippi and----
Mr. Marrero. And Louisiana.
Mr. Rouda [continuing]. Louisiana. What are those numbers
again? One more time.
Mr. Marrero. 1,300 projects compared to 46 fixed cost
estimates that we have finalized right now for permanent work
under section 428.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you very much.
Mr. Marrero. You are welcome.
Mr. Rouda. At this time, the chair would like to recognize
Congresswoman Tlaib for five minutes.
Ms. Tlaib. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As our communities increasingly face threats from natural
disasters and the destruction that comes with them, we know
that local and state governments alone are not equipped to
handle the response. My residents in Dearborn Heights need more
help than that to rebuild after their homes flooded. We need
Federal resources to respond to the crisis at their scale. And
the good news is that we, indeed, have specific Federal
agencies and programs designed to do just that. But the system
breaks down when the Federal Government refuses to do their
job.
One of those concerns I have is that FEMA and HUD are
holding onto billions of dollars in aid that have yet to reach
our communities.
To the panel, I would like to ask each of you how much
money from FEMA's public assistance grant has been awarded to
your community and how much have you actually received.
Mr. Costello. Congresswoman, I will start first.
So we received $160 million immediately post Hurricane
Harvey for debris removal, which was what we called expedited
funding. Post that allocation, we have only received $23
million to date.
Ms. Tlaib. If you all can answer that question, if you do
not mind.
Mr. Rouda. Can you also say how much was allotted?
Mr. Costello. So on public assistance, this is a 90 percent
Federal share, 10 percent local share. So what happens is each
project we negotiate with FEMA on what the recovery cost is. So
similar to what Puerto Rico was describing, we anticipate
somewhere north of 460 projects, individual projects like, for
instance, city hall flooded. That is one project. Our
wastewater treatment plant--that is another project. So we have
probably somewhere around 25 projects we have agreed to
resolution on cost. The balance of them are still in the
negotiation process two years post the event.
Ms. Tlaib. Two years.
Mr. Costello. Yes, ma'am.
Mr. Marrero. Well, if you go recovery.pr, which is one of
the initiatives that we have implemented in order to provide
timely information to all stakeholders, of the $55 billion that
FEMA has estimated for the public assistance program in Puerto
Rico, only roughly 10 percent has been obligated, 5.6. Of that
amount only 3.6, roughly 65 percent, has been disbursed. If you
take into consideration the fact that we are operating under
section 428 for permanent work, that is--essentially 97 percent
of that funding is only for emergency work. So having in mind
in Puerto Rico we have been operating under categories A and B
for the last 21 months. That is roughly where we are at.
Mr. Ghilarducci. So, Congresswoman, I would just answer it
this way. Given the fact that since 2012 we have had 16
Presidential disaster declarations across the board, I could
not tell you today exactly where and how much. I could tell you
from the standpoint of working with a public assistance program
that has changed in the middle of these disasters, which has
resulted in a lot of complexities and has drawn out the time in
which we were able to get reimbursements. And typically it is a
situation where I would either have to lean in or work with the
regional administrator to accelerate a particular project or
highlight a particular project. There is a lot of work that can
be done to streamline the recovery process by really cutting
through a lot of the bureaucracy.
Ms. Tlaib. So how much in community development block
grants, CDBG-DR, whatever funds, have you been awarded with and
how much have you actually received as well? If you can be
specific. One of my colleagues is asking if you could be
specific of what you are asking for and what the relief is for.
Mr. Costello. So on the HUD side----
Ms. Tlaib. Yes.
Mr. Costello [continuing]. you are referring to the HUD
side--we received $1.3 billion on housing recovery from HUD. We
are waiting for the new guidelines to NOFA for the mitigation
dollars. The state of Texas is anticipating $4.3 billion in HUD
mitigation. We understand there are some delays in getting the
NOFA out, and one of those reasons is that HUD is a housing
agency not a mitigation agency. So we understand there is a
delay.
Ms. Tlaib. Mr. Costello, one of the things that always gets
lost in committee hearings is the human impact. What has this
done on the ground for families in Houston? What are some of
the impacts in recovery efforts to the families in Houston?
Mr. Costello. So generally what happens is on the community
development block grant side, we are getting our moneys now to
families in need of home repair, home reconstruction. The HUD
mitigation dollars that we are waiting for will be moneys that
we can do capital projects to provide flood protection to the
investment of those housing dollars.
Ms. Tlaib. So are they living with mold?
Mr. Costello. No.
Ms. Tlaib. Are they homeless?
Mr. Costello. So some of these people are either living in
homes that have not been repaired that we are going out and
knocking on doors because they are not familiar with the
program. We have reached out to over 15,000 people post the
event knocking on doors. We have knocked on over 100,000 doors
to get them to see if people are interested and need the help
they need. So we are doing an active role in actually reaching
out to these people.
Ms. Tlaib. I am sorry I ran out of time, but thank you so
much.
Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you.
The chair now recognizes Congressman Higgins for five
minutes of questioning.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello, are you familiar with the Institute for
Rehabilitation Research, Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston?
Mr. Costello. Yes, I am.
Mr. Higgins. After Hurricane Harvey, did Memorial Hermann
flood, sir?
Mr. Costello. I do not believe so, sir.
Mr. Higgins. Would you explain to America why the hospital
right there in Houston did not flood?
Mr. Costello. Well, if you look at Hurricane Harvey, there
are areas of the city that did flood tremendously and areas of
the city that did not. I will highlight one Federal project
that was recently completed, which was Sims Bayou on the
southeast side of town that had virtually no flooding in the
entire watershed. So it is really a function of where the
rainfall occurred, the intensity of the rainfall, and the
capacity of the existing stream to receive it.
Mr. Higgins. Just in the interest of time--I appreciate
your very thorough response, but does Memorial Hermann have a
flood wall and flood gates built around the hospital? Do they
have a helipad? Did they assist first responders with their own
communications center in the wake of Hurricane Harvey?
Mr. Costello. So, Congressman, if you are referring to the
entire medical center, they did not flood because of the
improvements they did post tropical storm Allison in 2001.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you. That is just what I am getting at.
And I thank you for your service, sir.
We have to constantly remind ourselves and our colleagues
that there is no such thing as Federal money. It is the
people's treasure. Every dollar we have has been seized from
the paycheck of a working American. So as we invest the
treasure in disaster recovery, it is important that we consider
pre-mitigation efforts we discussed in the first panel and that
there was no right or wrong answer to that question. Just the
point is that there is a hospital in the middle of Houston that
had taken efforts upon its own to protect itself from future
flooding, and it was very helpful in the wake of Hurricane
Harvey. And I would suggest that we all consider things like
this.
Mr. Marrero, when there is a disaster in the continental
United States, wherever it is, south Louisiana--we are no
stranger to hurricanes. There is always a way to get to the
impacted area because it is on the continental United States.
But when Puerto Rico was hit in such a devastating manner, it
struck me, and many of my friends and colleagues in Louisiana
wanted to help. We were prepared to help. We were there to
help. And yet, the ports were locked up with aid that could not
make it inland in Puerto Rico because of the damage to the
roads, et cetera. And there was no means by which to make beach
landings. There was no specialty barges standing by to make
beach landings to bring supplies that had been sent immediately
and were stacked up in the ports. There was no way to get them
across the beachheads onto the areas that were impacted through
roads that were usable.
Long ago, the Lake Pontchartrain causeway was built in the
1960's. It has been long referred to as the world's longest
bridge, 24 miles long. And because of the construction of this
bridge in south Louisiana, occasionally a section will get
knocked out by a barge. Tragically cars would drive right into
it. So it did not take long. Two or three times this happened,
and now it is mandated on both sides of this bridge--there are
segments of that bridge standing by ready to be installed
because of previous loss. And this is the kind of common sense
that we need.
So my question to you, sir, is for obvious reasons, Puerto
Rico, our brothers and sisters whom we love--we need to help to
assist, respond. But please give us an answer regarding this.
Is Puerto Rico considering measures to take to be prepared to
better receive the good will and assistance of the world in the
wake of a future disaster in the form of having access by
beachhead?
Mr. Marrero. Well, sir, first of all, thank you very much
for the people of Louisiana and the American people that helped
the people of Puerto Rico in the most dire times.
One of the strategies that we were assessing with FEMA--it
was the fact we are a multi-port destination. I know that we
are a small island, but we have port facilities not only in San
Juan but also in Ceiba, which is not only we have the deepest
seaport in Puerto Rico in the former Rosie Roads base, but also
we have the longest runway there. We also have the support in
the south. We also have the Mayaguez ports.
So part of the after-action assessment--it was the fact
that we have the facilities across the island. We just have to
coordinate in a more effective and efficient way not only with
the state agency but also with the Federal agencies.
Even though we had the impacts of Hurricanes Irma and
Maria, we were able to open the ports 48 hours after. We had a
bottleneck. Yes, we had a bottleneck because not only we were
receiving the relief supplies, the high season of Christmas,
and also several ships that had to stay at the bay when the
Coast Guard closed the San Juan Bay.
The simple answer is, yes, sir. We have multiple facilities
across the island that we need to use in a more holistic way.
And we are working with the Federal partners. We are working
with the state partners to make sure that we can use, for
example, the Rosie Roads base not only for receiving
reconstruction materials, but also could be a platform for help
neighboring island, not only USVI and the BVI, but also other
islands.
So, yes, the answer is that we are working and making sure
if something happens--thank God the navigation channel of the
San Juan Bay was not obstructed. Thank God. But if that
happened, the story will be either further exacerbated.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you for your very thorough answer.
Mr. Chairman, I yield. Thank you for your indulgence, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you.
The chair now recognizes Congresswoman Speier for five
minutes of questioning.
Ms. Speier. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
And thank you all for being here.
I guess I would like to start with you, Mr. Marrero. We
hear a lot about Puerto Rico and yet we do not, I think, know
precisely the condition of the island as it relates to the
people. How many people are still homeless?
Mr. Marrero. 20,000.
Ms. Speier. Did you say 20,000?
Mr. Marrero. 20,000 families. 20,000 families are right now
still with blue tarps. That number is being revised with the
mayors across the island to make sure that they are prioritized
through the R3 program of the CDBG. That is repair,
rehabilitation, and relocation of families.
Ms. Speier. How many hospitals are still inoperable?
Mr. Marrero. Let me make it a little bit easier. Right now,
there is no hospitals, schools, roads or houses being built as
a permanent work. No permanent work is being done in Puerto
Rico. So a thousand schools are still waiting to be repaired.
Ms. Speier. A thousands schools are in disrepair.
Mr. Marrero. Yes, ma'am, as well as the hospital, the
hospital in Vieques, we are still waiting a final determination
in order to move forward with those projects.
Ms. Speier. So FEMA has kind of failed. Has it not? Those
are my words. Maybe you should not even answer it.
Mr. Marrero. I think that to be completely honest and
objective, I think that Puerto Rico's recovery has been the
most complex response in U.S. history. The fact that we are an
island has been even more complex. So I think that the
challenge has been present not only on the mainland but also in
Puerto Rico, and obviously, FEMA has not been able to manage.
Ms. Speier. Mr. Ghilarducci, one of the things the
President said was that California does not manage its forest
lands well. And if I remember correctly, the U.S. Government
owns most of the forest lands in California. Is that right?
Could you give us the specific numbers?
Mr. Ghilarducci. Yes, that is correct, Congresswoman.
Roughly 70 percent of the lands are Federal lands in
California, and they are managed by a number of Federal
agencies.
Ms. Speier. So if you were to assess the condition of those
various Federal lands as to their preparedness for yet another
firestorm, how would you rank them? A, B, C, D, E--well, I
guess E does not count. A, B, C, D, F.
Mr. Ghilarducci. I think probably different parts of the
state have different threats. Some of them are F's,
particularly in the high tree mortality area driven by the
drought and the number of dead trees. Some of them are in the C
minus to D level. There is very few that I would say were in
the A or B level.
Ms. Speier. So if we asked you to give us a list of
preparatory steps that the Federal Government should be taking
to manage its forest lands, would you be able to do that?
Mr. Ghilarducci. Well, I would just say efforts that we
have undertaken--you know, Governor Newsom--it started with
Governor Brown, now Governor Newsom--of actually investing a
significant amount of resources to go in and do defensible
space clearing, making sure that we have----
Ms. Speier. On Federal lands?
Mr. Ghilarducci. Well, no, this is on state land. On the
Federal----
Ms. Speier. No. I understand that you are doing a lot on
the state side. I am trying to figure out--what will
potentially happened this summer is that a fire will break out
on Federal lands and then gravitate to state lands potentially.
Mr. Ghilarducci. Yes. I think the Forest Service and the
Federal agencies are doing some work in the area. They are
simply not resourced appropriately and lack the funding to be
able to do anything very significant.
Ms. Speier. All right. If you could provide us with the
steps you think that the Federal Government should be taking to
manage the 70 percent of the forest lands that it has in
California, that would be helpful.
Could you tell us a little bit more about how you are
adapting your wildfire preparedness and response strategies to
the new conditions introduced by climate change in California?
Mr. Ghilarducci. So there is a number of initiatives that
we have underway. The first is that we took a very aggressive
assessment of the state looking at the highest threat areas,
the tier 1 and 2, which are high and extreme fire threat areas,
how they correspond with the urban-wildland intermix, and
really leveraged all resources, all hands on deck to come
together working with those local governments to begin forest
clearing and building in defensible space, doing evacuation
planning. We have been working on--we put out new guidelines
for alert and warning capabilities so that all local
jurisdictions within the state have a common platform for doing
alert and warning to the public. And we have increased the
number of resources, whether it is hard fire fighting assets,
engines, helicopters, and personnel, as well as funding
community groups like fire safe councils and other preparedness
groups to build capacity within their communities to buy down
the risk of wildfire.
Ms. Speier. My time has expired. But if you could put a
number on that for us, either now or later, that would be
helpful to us.
Mr. Ghilarducci. Okay, great.
Ms. Speier. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you.
The chair now recognizes the Ranking Member Comer for five
minutes of questioning.
Mr. Comer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to followup on what Ms. Speier was talking
about in California.
Mr. Ghilarducci, are you familiar with the bill that passed
out of the House last year pertaining to forest management? It
was sponsored by, if my memory is correct, Congressman
Westerman from Arkansas. It dealt with forest management and
how to potentially alleviate the problems with the lack of
forest management in California. And that bill, for whatever
reason, did not make it through the Senate. I was on the farm
bill conference committee, and we tried to put that language in
the farm bill to allow better forest management practices in
California. And there was intense opposition for that language
being added by several members of the California delegation.
You were not in Congress, Mr. Chairman, so I am not talking
about you.
I did not know if you were familiar with that bill and if
you had any thoughts on that bill because we had people that
were coming in to testify to us with utility companies saying
that there is a theory that the big Camp Fire started because a
limb was struck by lightning. It ignited the fire. With all the
lack of forest management, it quickly spread. But there are
regulations in California that do not allow utility companies
to cut limbs along the lines of utility lines and just a lot of
excessive, unnecessary regulations that have unintentional
consequences.
Mr. Ghilarducci. Well, there is a lot in that question. And
let me just say that on the Camp Fire, which--it has not been
determined that that fire was started by a downed power line.
The conditions is what we kind of have to look at it. It is
more just what the status of the forest is. In the case of the
Camp Fire, the Town of Paradise and the surrounding communities
had been awarded several recognition awards for being the most
fire-resilient communities in the wildland-urban interface. The
fact is that the fire started in the upper canyon, and the
conditions that night were so extreme, in fact, the most
extreme that many of us in the fire service had seen in our
entire career, where literally it blew that fire into a
community that was managed appropriately. So I think you have
to take each one of these--it has its own signature to it--and
look at it.
I would say that we would agree in California that there
have been some regulations that have been restrictive, and they
have been being looked at. And many of them have been changed.
Both Governor Brown and Governor Newsom have instituted
executive orders to streamline the issue of being able to go in
and do some forest management and with the utilities, working
with them to be able to clear back defensible space along their
power lines.
It is a new norm, and it is something that we all have to
look at in a broader context with regards to both pre-event and
then post-event hazard mitigation.
Mr. Comer. I think you would find bipartisan support in
Congress to try to work with California to reduce the
regulatory burden to try to better manage the federally owned
forest lands there.
The next question I want to ask--Mr. Costello, I share your
frustration with FEMA being slow on paying their bills and
obligations. I represent the western Kentucky area along the
Mississippi River that has experienced flooding and get a lot
of calls from disgruntled local officials that have not
received their FEMA funding. So I share your frustration with
that. I think historically that has been a problem with FEMA.
What are some things FEMA can do besides the point that you
make, which I agree, trying to process their transactions
quicker and besides more funding? What are some things FEMA can
do to better serve the needs of people that have been
negatively affected by disasters?
Mr. Costello. Congressman, I was hoping someone would ask
me that question.
So I have a little chart here. I know it is very hard to
see. It has 45 separate steps associated with one project on
public assistance, and within those 45 steps, you go through
two separate audits inside FEMA, and then it goes to OMB for an
audit. If it is over a million dollars, it goes to a
congressional group. After that, it then flows back down to the
state who is a recipient for a fourth audit before the city
even gets the funds. So it is not the people that work within
FEMA. They really want to help the communities. It is the
process. There is something wrong with the process specifically
on the public assistance side. And that is really the problem
that we are having.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you.
The chair now recognizes myself for five minutes.
Mr. Ghilarducci, as you know, I am from southern California
and obviously very concerned about wildfires not just in
southern California and Orange County, but throughout
California and the west. But I do want to make sure that we
clarify a couple points here.
My understanding--you mentioned earlier that 70 percent of
California are federally controlled lands. But my recollection
on the fires, that it was approximately 90-plus percent was
Federal lands that burned. Am I correct in that number?
Mr. Ghilarducci. Many of the fires that we saw these past
two years were on Federal lands. They may have started on
Federal land as well and then rolled into a state
responsibility area. So there were a number of state lands as
well that burned.
Mr. Rouda. And I just want to make sure too that we have
the proper narrative here because sometimes we see in the press
and some of the comments and some of the tweets that California
laws and regulations are the ones that are causing some of the
issues here. Are you aware of any California State law that
usurps the Federal management of the Federal-controlled lands
in California or anywhere else in the United States?
Mr. Ghilarducci. No, I am not.
Mr. Rouda. That is what I thought.
So we recognize that the Federal Government has control
over Federal lands both in California and 49 other states in
the management of those lands. Is that a correct statement?
Mr. Ghilarducci. I believe so.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you.
And I also want to talk a little bit about--you and I had a
chance to talk earlier today about an area of concern for all
of us in the U.S., and that was you talked a bit about the
ability for proper communication during natural disasters and
making sure that we have appropriate fortifications for
communication systems. I would love for you to elaborate on
that and what we experienced in California when those
communication systems go down.
Mr. Ghilarducci. Thank you, Mr. Chair, on addressing it
because it is something that we need to really think about. We
as a society generally are moving 100 percent onto these
devices. We are off of land lines. We are on to the cellular
network. And as such, we have become dependent upon getting all
of our information on these devices. And really the system that
manages these devices is not government-owned or controlled. It
is privately owned and controlled. Yet, we really depend upon
this for our lifesaving operations.
And so as we move forward, we are finding in these
catastrophic events--and it is really not just California and
the wildfires. I have talked to my colleagues in hurricane-
prone states and tornado-prone states where they have seen
similar kinds of failures. The resiliency of the system, the
cell sites, the back haul--we are talking about the fiber
lines--is not as hardened as it needs to be, something I call
public safety grade.
Mr. Rouda. And it is not just the people living there. It
is actually the first responders who are relying on that
communication foundation as well.
Mr. Ghilarducci. Of course. We all are depending upon this.
And look, let me say that AT&T and Verizon and all the
other major--they are partners with us, and they do provide
resources when we need them. But that is different than what we
are talking about. When we talk about making forests more safe
or doing hazard mitigation or home retrofitting, we also need
our infrastructure to be as hardened as possible. And we are
seeing too many failures in this system that we count on the
most. And I would just say that it is an area that needs to be
improved and it has to be done very fast because we are seeing
too many numbers of cell sites go down. And this is a time when
we are trying to get evacuation information out, fire data. All
of that is getting to the public, and we have a public that is
not being able to get that information.
Mr. Rouda. Well, as Mr. Higgins testified earlier or
questioned earlier, it is important that we make sure that we
have the appropriate infrastructure in place to better address
these events.
Mr. Costello, I want to go back. That chart was
fascinating. And I want people to have a better understanding
that when FEMA does come in and provides immediate support,
that is important. That is lifesaving support right then and
there. But there is a long process to get back to normal times
for these communities. And it sounds very much, from the
testimony here today, that it is taking years to get proper
funding in place to get back to normal. Am I correct?
Mr. Costello. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. We anticipate this is
probably a five to eight-year program to recover on the public
assistance side. That is correct.
Mr. Rouda. And, Mr. Marrero, I think you said a thousand
schools have not been reconstructed or are still----
Mr. Marrero. Still waiting. To give you some perspective of
the money that has been disbursed for Puerto Rico, only $25
million has been disbursed for permanent work. And that is
essentially A&E, architectural and engineering design. No
school has been permanent fixed. No house has been permanent
fixed.
Mr. Rouda. And when did that hurricane occur?
Mr. Marrero. Twenty-one months ago, September 20.
Mr. Rouda. Twenty-one months ago.
Mr. Marrero. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rouda. Thank you.
I now want to turn it over to vice chair, Congresswoman
Tlaib to take the chair.
Ms. Tlaib.
[presiding] I would like to now recognize my good
colleague, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Marrero, are there patients in Puerto Rico still
receiving medical care in temporary facilities?
Mr. Marrero. Yes, ma'am. Vieques island.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Why has it taken so long to rebuild
these facilities?
Mr. Marrero. The process, section--I do not know if you are
familiar, but in Puerto Rico, we are implementing for the first
time in FEMA history what is called section 428. Section 428
was added to the Stafford Act after Sandy, with the Sandy
Recovery Improvement Act. That is essentially the alternative
procedure that we need to follow in order to get the
reimbursement processed with FEMA. In essence, in general
terms, the big difference is that before you can initiate any
permanent work or permanent fix, FEMA and the state and the
sub-recipient--they all have to agree on the fixed cost
estimate because, in essence, it works like a cap grant. So the
state and FEMA has to agree how much money you are going to
have before you can essentially start work.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. I see.
Mr. Marrero. And also I am sorry to add the fact that
section 428 is a pilot program. There is no clear guidance in
writing. So we are essentially designing the plane as we fly
it.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And picking up on what my colleague said
earlier, you said there were 20,000 homes still using blue
tarps?
Mr. Marrero. That is an estimate, ma'am, yes.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. How many roads still need to be
repaired?
Mr. Marrero. The entire 16,000 miles. There is no permanent
road--there is no road that has been permanently fixed.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Not a single road in Puerto Rico has
been permanently fixed.
Mr. Marrero. Yes, ma'am. Under FEMA, no.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And you said not a single home either?
Mr. Marrero. Yes, ma'am. The 108,000 families that
participated in the STEP program, it was only a temporary roof
or temporary repair.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. So not a single home has been
permanently fixed. Not a single road has been permanently
fixed.
Mr. Marrero. Not through the public assistance program or
FEMA.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Through the public assistance program.
Mr. Marrero. We received some aid from a not-for-profit to
help people, but not under the P8 program under FEMA, you are
correct, ma'am.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And not a single school has been
permanently fixed under the FEMA program as well. Right?
Mr. Marrero. Unfortunately so.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. I wanted to clarify some inconsistencies
because I think it is very important for the American people to
understand the correct facts in this situation on the state of
recovery.
We heard the President say last month--he tweeted that
Puerto Rico has been given more money by Congress for hurricane
disaster relief, $91 billion. Mr. Marrero, yes or no. Is this
figure accurate?
Mr. Marrero. Ma'am, I have my one-pager of that in order to
make sure that I have the correct facts. $91 billion was an
internal estimate by the Office of Management and Budget. So
that was just an estimate of how much it will cost the
recovery----
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. That was an estimate of the cost, but--
--
Mr. Marrero. For the 10-15 years.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. But they have not been given $91
billion.
Mr. Marrero. No, ma'am. Only of that, $41 billion has been
appropriated by Congress. Unfortunately, only $11.2 billion has
been disbursed, and essentially that is only for emergency
work.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. So the answer is no, the figure is not
accurate.
How much of the aid allocated to Puerto Rico have actually
reached the territory?
Mr. Marrero. $11.2 billion. That includes----
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And it is emergency only. Right?
Mr. Marrero. Essentially, ma'am.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. And last, when I was last on the island,
I visited communities that developed sustainable recovery plans
on their own because there has been no kind of long-term
permanent recovery investment that has effectively reached many
communities on the island.
So I saw that solar panels were ensured--I see that people
started installing solar panels to ensure that if another
hurricane were to come, the community would have an energy
resource.
Could you share with us about how the people of Puerto Rico
have responded to this disaster on their own, like some of
these ad hoc methods that are being used on the island?
Mr. Marrero. Well, I think that, first of all, when you
talk about Puerto Rican people, the only word that will come to
your mind is resiliency. Even though that we have faced so many
challenges and even those children still waiting for the
schools to be repaired, thank God no riots, no looting happened
in Puerto Rico. The people of Puerto Rico--we help ourselves.
You will see across the island people with a lot of electric
cords to help their neighbor and help the neighbors. So
essentially the people of Puerto Rico--they did not wait for
the government to respond. The government itself was a casualty
because of the magnitude of the disaster. So people starting
helping each other. Not-for-profits start getting to Puerto
Rico and Puerto Ricans just became what we are: Puerto Ricans.
And we are resilient. We help each other.
Unfortunately, that may not be an excuse to delay the
process, to delay the recovery process. So they are still
waiting. People are still waiting very patiently.
Unfortunately, I think that we just are at the juncture in
which we cannot wait. We are talking about people. We are
talking about children without a playground area, children that
are not able to learn in a healthy environment, and 20,000
families still waiting for decent housing to protect their
families.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. Thank you. Thank you very much.
I yield back to the chair.
Mr. Costello. Excuse me, Madam Chair. With all due respect
to the members, I have to catch a plane. Is that okay? May I be
excused?
Ms. Tlaib. Oh, yes. I was like who is talking.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Costello. I am sorry. May I be excused?
Ms. Tlaib. Of course, yes. Thank you so much for joining
us.
Without objection, the Representative Plaskett from the
full committee who represents the Virgin Islands and
Representative Velazquez from New York is authorized to
participate in today's hearing.
And with that, I would like to recognize Representative
Plaskett.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
And I would thank the witnesses for being here today.
I just wanted to get straight to the questions. I wanted to
ask Ms. Williams-Octalien some information about the recovery
process in the Virgin Islands. If you could tell us--now, we
know that we had damage to both of the hospitals. Can you tell
us what the assessment is? There are only two hospitals and one
clinic in the Virgin Islands. And what is the assessment of
those three facilities and where are they now?
Ms. Williams-Octalien. So the Juan F. Luis Hospital on St.
Croix has gotten authorization for replacement, and St. Thomas,
the Roy Lester Schneider Hospital--we are still working on
getting our damage descriptions being worked through with FEMA.
And we have the temporary facilities over in Myra Keating on
St. John. The clinic is now performing services there.
One of the key issues that we are having, basically as much
as Puerto Rico has stated, we are waiting on several things
from FEMA that will allow us to move forward. So we are really
in a holding pattern.
One, cost escalation factors. In order to complete the
fixed cost estimates, we must agree on what the cost escalation
factors would be over the life of the disaster and the recovery
because once we agree to the fixed cost estimate, that is the
cost that we will have to live with throughout the disaster
until the project is finished. We are still waiting for FEMA to
provide that to us, and until we are able to do that, we are
unable to move forward any of our permanent work in the
territory.
Ms. Plaskett. So let us go to one of those hospitals. Let
us talk about Juan F. Luis Hospital. You stated that FEMA has
agreed that it needs to be replaced, which means that it was
more than 50 percent damaged. Correct?
Ms. Williams-Octalien. Correct.
Ms. Plaskett. When did that agreement take place of the 50
percent damage?
Ms. Williams-Octalien. We only agreed to that last month.
Ms. Plaskett. So they just agreed 20-something months after
the hurricane that in fact the only hospital on St. Croix was
damaged more than 50 percent.
Ms. Williams-Octalien. Correct.
Ms. Plaskett. And in the interim, because there was more
than 50 percent damage, which means that it must have
difficulty in performing its functions, we understand that
there was supposed to be a modular unit, which was agreed upon,
that would take the place. Is that modular unit in place?
Ms. Williams-Octalien. No. The modular unit is still being
worked on to be put in place. So we are still working on that
as well.
Ms. Plaskett. So there is no modular hospital on one of the
major islands, and that modular unit is estimated to be in
place at what time?
Ms. Williams-Octalien. The rate that we are going at this
pace right now, it would not be until spring of next year.
Ms. Plaskett. So another year before the temporary modular
to await the hospital would be in place. So you obviously have
a hospital that is not functioning entirely as it should.
How many operating rooms at the hospital right now?
Ms. Williams-Octalien. We have one functional operating
room.
Ms. Plaskett. So I recall this weekend--and St. Croix is
the island that I live on. I know that we had a major car
accident where there was one fatality. People were brought to
the hospital, as well as a shooting where individuals were
eventually--they succumbed to the shooting. How does a hospital
function in that manner when there is one hospital and one
operating room?
Ms. Williams-Octalien. The situation is very grave and very
critical. And as you mentioned, if we have more than one
emergency at one time, we are really at a loss to be able to
provide those services. Hence, we continue to airlift our
residents to other facilities in order to get acute care. You
know that cannot happen quickly. The nearest destination would
probably be Puerto Rico or Miami.
Ms. Plaskett. So I am going to use this time, rather than
asking you questions, just outlining for my colleagues the kind
of situation that Virgin Islanders face to allow you to use the
rest of my time to tell us what would be best for us to help
you to facilitate this because you and I have spoke, Adrienne,
a saying that we have in the Virgin Islands, a closed mouth
does not get fed.
Ms. Williams-Octalien. Absolutely.
Ms. Plaskett. So Virgin Islanders have a habit of just
muddling through things, being proud, and not really being the
type to complain. But if there are challenges that you are
facing, if you could enlighten my colleagues as to what we as
Members of Congress can do, what those challenges are so that
we could figure out how we can facilitate moving things along a
little faster.
Ms. Williams-Octalien. And thank you for that.
The overall pace of the recovery has been very, very slow.
And it is really the ability for us to move forward in that
process. Whether it is the FEMA funds or it is the hazard
mitigation funds or the CDBG-DR funding, overall the process is
absolutely frustrating, confusing, and slow.
And we have been asking FEMA and working with FEMA to allow
us to move forward on some of the issues that we have over the
time that it takes for approvals for certain things that we
have asked for, strategies that we have developed in the
territory to move forward. We request those strategies--an
approval for those strategies to a Federal agency, and it takes
an inordinate amount of time for us to get a response back,
sometimes making that strategy null and void because we have
missed the window of opportunity. And we are continuing to see
that.
Also the fact that we are not able to get any of our
projects moving forward, whether it is our schools, our roads,
our critical facilities, the hospital, as you mentioned, even
our housing communities. We are still at the point where we are
waiting on cost escalation factors from FEMA. We are waiting on
information regarding cost share. All of those factors and the
timeline for the guidance that has been given--we continue to
expound the importance and the appreciation that we have for
all of the legislative reform regarding disaster relief. But
until we get guidance from either HUD or FEMA, we are unable to
access those new authorities that are provided through the
legislation. So when we have these have legislations go
forward, we ask if there are specific timelines that can be put
in place to ensure that these Federal agencies do things in a
timely manner, thereby allowing us to really access the
authorities that have been granted.
Ms. Plaskett. Thank you very much for that response.
And thank you, Madam Chair, for your indulgence in allowing
her to respond.
Ms. Tlaib. Thank you.
With that, I would like to recognize Congresswoman
Velazquez for five minutes.
Ms. Velazquez. Thank you, Chairwoman and thank you for
allowing me to be part of this important hearing for some of us
who come from the islands. I come from Puerto Rico. I live in
Puerto Rico, and I grew up in Puerto Rico. I was working for
the former Governor of Puerto Rico when Hurricane Hugo impacted
the island.
And I am amazed, frustrated. Just I do not understand why
it has taken this long, two years, and the hurricane season is
right--it started in July. To see that not a single permanent
project is in the pipeline to be rehabbed.
Homeland Security held a hearing just the other day, and we
had the Acting Administrator, Peter Gaynor, indicating that the
responsibility for the delay in the reimbursement to
municipalities in Puerto Rico or the effective implementation
of FEMA from the programs was due to our three's lack of
capacity and communications.
So, Mr. Marrero, can you please explain to me what type of
communications do you maintain with FEMA, and what have been
the challenges in the coordination of processes between both
agencies?
Mr. Marrero. First of all, Ms. Velazquez, thank you very
much for all the work for the people of Puerto Rico and
relationship that you have with the people of Puerto Rico.
Well, first of all, I am a little bit appalled with those
declarations. I am going to be honest. Since day one, we have
been working very diligently in making sure that what we have
been request, we deliver and excel. That includes the document
that we provided back in November 2017 while we were responding
to the immediate needs of the people of Puerto Rico.
Not only that, with approval of the BBA back in February
2008, we were required to develop a full recovery plan, and we
did it in a timely fashion, and we also did it not only with
the collaboration of FEMA, other agencies. We made it also
consistent with the fiscal plan certified by the oversight
board. Not only that, we were required to establish a
centralized oversight authority with the Central Office of
Recovery. We did it based on the model of Louisiana, New York,
New Jersey, Mississippi, and many other locations.
Not only that, we were also required to hire third-party
experts because we did not have the knowledge and expertise,
even though we have managed Federal funding in the past without
any finding. We conducted a very robust procurement processes,
and we ended up having a top notch team that includes Deloitte
for the financial controls----
Ms. Velazquez. So are you telling me that there is no
reason as to why the money has not made it to Puerto Rico?
Mr. Marrero. The reason why the money has--by the way, we
did all that. And because of that, we were able to take over
the reimbursement process. I know that you remembered that
since day one, FEMA controlled the reimbursement process in
Puerto Rico as opposed to other states. We developed the
policies, procedures----
Ms. Velazquez. And why is that?
Mr. Marrero. Because of the fiscal condition of Puerto
Rico. They thought----
Ms. Velazquez. So you have done everything that you have
been asked.
Mr. Marrero. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Velazquez. And yet, the people of Puerto Rico are
subjected to the delay, putting lives at risk once again.
So let us talk about Vieques, the hospital in Vieques. As
we know, the Navy used Vieques for military practices. There is
environmental contamination in Puerto Rico. The Navy was out of
Vieques under George W. Bush. Promises were made, and still
here we are with a hospital that is not operational, with the
challenge of the lack of transportation for the people of
Vieques to go to the mainland Puerto Rico to get medical
services.
Have you received--because all I have seen is a press
release that was put out by FEMA. After first they say we going
to rebuild--we going to build a new hospital, then they came
back and they say we going to rebuild whatever you have left of
a hospital in Puerto Rico. I complained and I demanded a new
facility, and just recently they issued a press release saying
that they concurred that they should have a new hospital.
Have you received any form of communication from FEMA?
Mr. Marrero. No, ma'am. We are still waiting for the formal
determination letter, as well as the final number.
Ms. Velazquez. My next question is considering that 90
percent of Federal contract spending for disaster relief and
recovery has been awarded to firms on the mainland, I would
like to know what you are doing and what plans do you have to
facilitate local contracting? We have the best engineers. We
have great construction companies in Puerto Rico that have done
work in other Caribbean islands. We need to promote economic
development. We have to provide a level playing field for those
Puerto Rican contracting firms to be able to get into the
Federal----
Ms. Tlaib. Thank you so much, Congresswoman Velazquez.
You can go ahead and answer those questions.
Mr. Marrero. Sure, I could not agree more with you. I come
from a family with a pop and mom shop. That is the reason how
we were able to move forward.
So definitely, even though there is some constitutional
limitation, Congresswoman, we really want to make sure that
this is not about disaster recovery only. This is about
economic recovery. This is a moonshot opportunity for the
people of Puerto Rico to make sure that we do it the right way.
So what we have done. Well, first of all, we increased the
minimum wage in the construction industry to make sure that we
have more folks in the construction industry.
Second, as part of the action plan that we developed for
the CDBG funds, we also included construction loans and other
mechanisms in order to allow local companies to have the
financial bandwidth in order to participate in the processes
because many of the requirements on the FEMA and HUD side will
require some bonding requirement a local company will not be
able to satisfy. So that is why we are really making sure that
we use not only the FEMA program but also CDBG programs to make
sure that the local companies are well equipped because, as you
mentioned, we have to make sure that we get it right.
So once the significant funding is used, what is going to
happen? Well, we have to make sure that the people of Puerto
Rico are trained. And I agree. They are top notch
professionals. Not only to help in Puerto Rico, but if
something happens somewhere in California, New York, Florida,
or Texas, the Puerto Rican companies can also participate.
Ms. Tlaib. Thank you so much.
I would like to thank all of our witnesses for testifying
today.
And without objection, all members will have five
legislative days within which to submit additional written
questions for the witnesses to the chair, which will be
forwarded to the witnesses for their response.
I ask all our witnesses to please respond as promptly as
you are able to.
Again, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:24 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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