[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
BUILDING RESILIENT COMMUNITIES FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON LEGISLATIVE AND
BUDGET PROCESS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON RULES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2019
__________
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via http://govinfo.gov
Printed for the use of the Committee on Rules
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
38-240 WASHINGTON : 2019
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COMMITTEE ON RULES
JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts, Chairman
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida, TOM COLE, Oklahoma,
Vice Chair Ranking Republican
NORMA J. TORRES, California ROB WOODALL, Georgia
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York
DONNA E. SHALALA, Florida
MARK DeSAULNIER, California
DON SISSON, Staff Director
KELLY DIXON, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget Process
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida, Chairman
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York, ROB WOODALL, Georgia,
Vice Chair Ranking Republican
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
DONNA E. SHALALA, Florida
JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts
------
Subcommittee on Rules and Organization of the House
NORMA J. TORRES, California, Chair
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado, DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona,
Vice Chair Ranking Republican
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania ROB WOODALL, Georgia
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York
JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts
------
Subcommittee on Expedited Procedures
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland, Chair
DONNA E. SHALALA, Florida, MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas,
Vice Chair Ranking Republican
NORMA J. TORRES, California DEBBIE LESKO, Arizona
MARK DeSAULNIER, California
JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts
C O N T E N T S
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September 24, 2019
Page
Opening Statements:
Hon. Alcee L. Hastings, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Florida and Chair of the Subcommittee on
Legislative and Budget Process............................. 1
Hon. Rob Woodall, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Georgia and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on
Legislative and Budget Process............................. 3
Witness Testimony:
Mr. Bill Johnson, Director of Emergency Management in Palm
Beach County............................................... 5
Prepared Statement....................................... 8
Mrs. Heather McTeer Toney, National Field Director, Moms
Clean Air Force and former mayor, Greenville, Mississippi.. 12
Prepared Statement....................................... 14
Mr. John Piotti, President and CEO of American Farmland Trust 23
Prepared Statement....................................... 26
Ms. Katherine Hamilton, Executive Director, Advanced Energy
Management Alliance........................................ 29
Prepared Statement....................................... 32
Dr. Marvin Phaup, Research Scholar and Professorial Lecturer,
Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public
Administration, George Washington University............... 40
Prepared Statement....................................... 42
Additional Materials Submitted for the Record:
Statement from Ashley Daniels, Resident of Wilmington, North
Carolina................................................... 64
Statement from David C. Brown, Senior Vice President, Federal
Government Affairs & Public Policy, Exelon Corporation
dated September 23, 2019................................... 66
Statement from American Property Casualty Insurance
Association dated September 24, 2019....................... 81
Renewable Energy Jobs by State submitted by Ms. Scanlon...... 93
Curriculum Vitae and Truth in Testimony Forms for Witnesses
Testifying Before the Committee............................ 95
BUILDING RESILIENT COMMUNITIES FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2019
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget Process,
Committee on Rules,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:46 p.m., in
Room H-313, The Capitol, Hon. Alcee L. Hastings [chairman of
the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Hastings, Morelle, Scanlon,
Shalala, McGovern, Woodall, and Burgess.
OPENING STATEMENTS
Mr. Hastings. The Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget
Process of the Committee on Rules will come to order.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ALCEE L. HASTINGS, A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA AND CHAIR OF THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON LEGISLATIVE AND BUDGET PROCESS
I am pleased to welcome our witnesses and thank them for
being here. Today marks the Subcommittee on Legislative and
Budget Process' first hearing of the 116th Congress. This
afternoon's hearing will focus on ways to increase community
resilience and the impacts that natural disasters have on the
budget process.
Since 1980, the United States has endured 250 weather-
related disasters where the overall damages were at or above $1
billion. In total, these catastrophes have resulted in over
13,200 deaths and an economic loss of over $1.7 trillion.
However, the billion dollar disasters only tell one side of
the story. This summer, and as late as last week, torrential
downpours flooded huge swaths of the Midwest and southeast,
triggering flash floods in Tennessee, Kentucky, and last week
in Beaumont, Texas and Houston, Oklahoma, North Carolina,
Illinois, and then as Bill Johnson knows in my home State of
Florida. Beyond flash flooding, rising rivers in Iowa
threatened local communities' drinking water. Wildfires and
mudslides broke out in California, and there were droughts in
the Dakotas.
Weeks and weeks of rain across the Great Plains in the
Midwest have kept many farmers from planting crops. In
Arkansas, just half of the State's soybean crop had been
planted by early June, compared with 90 percent at the same
time last year. By the end of June, the flooding was so intense
and widespread that at least 11 States sought Federal disaster
funds for more than 400 affected counties.
Events like these disrupt daily life, cause devastation and
death, and generate billions of dollars in losses. But as
policymakers, we sometimes fail to detail how disasters affect
people's well-being, especially when we consider disadvantaged
communities are usually among those who bear the brunt of
natural disasters.
Disparities exist before disaster strikes and recovery
plans rarely account for these inequities, which embeds these
disparities further. Let me give you an example of that that is
a tragedy that all of us are aware of. In Abaco, there was an
area called Mud in Abaco. Interestingly, the inhabitants of
that little part of Abaco came from Haiti that had fled the
earthquake disaster and the disparities in the Bahamas allowed
that they lived in Mud. And when the hurricane just came
through--I see Bill nodding his head--the thought is that many
of them were just washed out to sea. It was in an area where
the disaster relief people couldn't get to it as quickly.
And that is an example of the disparity in another country.
And I could do the same thing in Puerto Rico and several other
places I could show you where that happened.
I personally have seen the frustration and despair that
sets in for communities when the Federal Government's disaster
response falls short, or takes too long, or is so convoluted
that many families struggle to understand what benefits they
might be eligible for.
Let me be clear, more extreme weather is going to come,
whether we like it or not. And while we cannot stop natural
disasters from hitting, we can control how we prepare and how
we recover from them.
While the current disaster supplemental process helps
communities rebuild following natural disasters, it rarely
makes individuals and businesses whole. And it cannot take the
place of proactive Federal Government programs specifically
designed to prepare communities before the next natural
disaster hits.
No region of our great country is immune to natural
disasters. Therefore, I believe we must channel all of our
energies into developing and implementing a national resiliency
plan that empowers all of our communities to build a smarter
and stronger future. This means not only unleashing the power
of the Federal Government but also of cities, towns, urban, and
rural, and suburban communities. It requires us to make the
necessary investments in infrastructure and renewable energy to
spur job creation in construction, manufacturing, and
adaptation and mitigation technology. And failing to do so may
very well cost us millions of jobs and trillions of dollars in
the upcoming few years.
We have the power to move towards a more sustainable and
equitable future for all. And it is my hope that this hearing
will help us clarify these challenges and set us on the path of
addressing them in a more comprehensive fashion.
I now recognize my good friend, the distinguished ranking
member of the subcommittee, Mr. Woodall, for any opening
statement he wishes to make.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ROB WOODALL, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
THE STATE OF GEORGIA AND RANKING MEMBER OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON
LEGISLATIVE AND BUDGET PROCESS
Mr. Woodall. Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate that, and
I appreciate you holding the hearing today. I wanted to be the
first, given this panel of amazing folks that are here before
us, to introduce one of the witnesses that our team has
invited, and that is Dr. Marvin Phaup.
Dr. Phaup is the resident scholar professional lecturer at
the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public
Administration at George Washington University, and specializes
in teaching Federal budget concepts and policy. I would like to
believe some of that is the result of work that he did here
when he was the head of the financial studies and budget
process group over at the Congressional Budget Office. And from
there, he went on to be the director of Federal budget reform
initiative with The Pew Charitable Trusts.
He has also served as a senior economist with the Federal
Reserve Bank of Cleveland, a fellow at the National Academy of
Public Administration, received the Kenneth Howard award for
lifetime achievement in public budgeting and finance from the
Association of Budgeting and Financial Management, and the
national distinguished service award from the American
Association of Budget and Program Analysis.
That is a long list of professional accomplishments, but I
hope that we will dwarf those with testimony before the House
Rules subcommittee here today.
Mr. Chairman, as the former chairman of this subcommittee,
I know how much it takes to put a hearing together, and I want
to thank you and your team for all the hard work. As you would
expect, your staff has been incredibly gracious working with my
staff. I know that comes from the top in the same way that you
are very gracious working with each and every one of us. I want
to thank you for the spirit with which you put this hearing
together.
I remember one of the first issues I got to work on in the
Budget Committee when I was elected back in 2011 was the Budget
Control Act, which tried to do some of what we're talking about
today. While it restrained discretionary spending across the
board for the first time, it tried to forward fund disaster
papers to say we know that we are going to have these
challenges, let's go ahead and be honest about what that cost
is going to be to the taxpayer.
Now, you are trying to take that one step further in these
resiliency hearings, not to bail folks out on the back end, but
what can we do to solve problems on the front end. I know other
committees in the House are working on this. On the T&I
Committee on which I serve, we marked up two bills last week,
the Resilience Revolving Loan Fund Act and the PREPARED Act. We
actually passed the PREPARED Act in this Congress last year as
a part of H.R. 4, but it didn't make it across the finish line.
I happened to have googled House committees and resilience
hearing before I came over today. We will see results from the
Science Committee doing resilience hearings, the Budget
Committee, the Oversight Committee, the Select Committee on
Climate Crisis, the Natural Resources Committee and more. That
is just at the Federal level. Of course, we see even more going
on at the State and local level.
This is the right time to have this conversation, Mr.
Chairman. And while I would like to think you and I are both
experts in congressional budget process, I know we are not yet
experts in resiliency, funding, and financing predisaster
mitigation techniques. And so I will take no more time so we
can get on to the experts that you have here before us.
I'm grateful, again, for your friendship and your
partnership. And I yield back.
Mr. Hastings. Thank you so very much. And thank you for
bringing attention to the fact that staff has done an
incredible job of getting these outstanding witnesses here, but
talking with others around the country as well. Particularly in
North Carolina, we paid a lot of attention to some of the
concerns that we were able to get from their people.
I also am mindful, we are more East Coast oriented than we
are West Coast on this hearing. But, hopefully, we will be able
to follow through and take into consideration the concerns that
they have in the Dakotas and in other--in California and other
places.
Our witnesses today are experts in the field, all of them.
And I want to welcome them and introduce four of them. And
thank you for introducing the doctor, who has extraordinary
credentials.
First, Bill Johnson, my friend. He and I have suffered
hurricanes galore in our area. He serves as the director of
Emergency Management in Palm Beach County. And Bill has guided
Palm Beach in its response to several disaster incidents. He is
a registered nurse, a certified paramedic, and certified
emergency manager.
Next, we have Heather Toney, who served as the first
African American, first female, and youngest mayor of
Greenville, Mississippi. Heather also served as regional
administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency's
southeast region during the Obama administration. And she
currently serves as the national field director for Moms Clean
Air Force. That is something I want to hear more about. I see a
couple of the ladies here as well.
Third, we have John Piotti, who is the current CEO and
president of American Farmland Trust, an organization dedicated
to protecting agricultural land, promoting environmentally
friendly farming practices, and keeping farmers and ranchers on
their land. And John has over 20 years of executive management
and public policy experience.
And last but not least, we have Ms. Katherine Hamilton, who
is executive director of Advanced Energy Management Alliance,
an association of providers and supporters of distributed
energy resources, including demand response and advanced energy
management, united to overcome barriers to nationwide use of
demand-side resources.
Bill, I would like if you would deliver your testimony
first, and then we will go straight down the aisle.
STATEMENT OF BILL JOHNSON, DIRECTOR OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT,
PALM BEACH COUNTY
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Congressman Hastings. Really
appreciate it. And again, good to see you again. And thank you,
everyone----
Mr. Hastings. Get your mike there if it is not on.
Mr. Johnson. Okay. You hear me now?
Mr. Hastings. Okay.
MR. Johnson. Again, thank you for the invitation today.
Desire to make our communities more disaster resilient is
not new. Experiences repeatedly demonstrated that lives can be
saved, damage to property can be reduced significantly, and
economic recovery can be accelerated by consistently building
safer and stronger buildings, strengthening existing
infrastructures, enhancing building codes, and making the
proper preparations before a disaster occurs.
Modern day mitigation has been evident since the late 1980s
when the Stafford Act was passed. In 1990, the Community Rating
System was established. And later, James Lee Witt, FEMA
Administrator from 1993 to 2001, launched Project Impact, the
program in 1997 to build community partnerships, identify
community hazards and vulnerabilities, and prioritize risk-
reduction strategies.
Giving out my age, but I witnessed firsthand the benefits
of Project Impact. We elevated homes, we improved storm
drainage systems, we fortified and relocated structures, and we
hardened buildings and homes.
In 2005, we learned that for every dollar spent on
mitigation results in a $4 return on avoided future loses, and
more recently, we are finding that that ratio was closer to 7
to 1. A dollar investment in mitigation can save an average of
$6 to $7 in response and recovery spending.
It seems to me that the current Federal mitigation programs
are built backwards, or at the least, upside down. Despite the
plenty of evidence, the value and efficacy of mitigation
strategies, funding for mitigation is a mere fraction of the
funding for the after-the-fact post-disaster response. Instead
of focusing its efforts on minimizing the impact of national
disasters, FEMA is mired with cleaning up after them.
Representative Hastings, you talked about 250 weather
disasters amounting to more than a billion dollars in damages.
And again, in terms of disaster relief, we have seen that
number go as high as $140 billion.
In terms of mitigation, however, over its 12-year history,
funding levels for predisaster mitigation program, or PDM, have
risen and fallen anywhere between $50 and $150 million. Despite
the success of the Project Impact program, mitigation funding
has continued to be well below the need. In 2018, only $235
million in PDM funds were appropriated; a drop in the bucket
compared to the $89 billion in supplemental appropriations
alone for disaster response, also in 2018.
The Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) aims to reduce
loss of life and property from future natural disasters by
providing funding to State and local governments for mitigation
projects after a major disaster declaration. HMGP funds are by
far the majority of mitigation fund dollars appropriated by the
Federal Government, and essentially, we must wait for a major
disaster to be eligible for a great majority of mitigation
dollars.
Another example, not related to hurricanes, but further
emphasizes an all hazards rethink, and that is the Homeland
Security Grant Program began in 2003 for the purpose of
procuring surveillance equipment, weapons, and advanced
training for local first responders in order to heighten our
preparedness. We have purchased personal protected equipment,
rescue equipment, communications equipment and more, all aimed
at the immediate response to a terrorist incident. $1 billion
were allocated to HSGP in 2019.
Now, while I am absolutely committed to protecting our
first responders and ensuring their safety, after 16 years, we
have allocated billions of dollars focused purely on the first
7 minutes of a terrorist incident. However, we are learning
from the post-incident analyses of terrorists and mass shooting
events that recovery from these events is a prolonged process.
After 7 minutes or less, nearly all incidents are over. But the
hard work is just beginning, and that hard work lasts over 7
years. The trauma, medical care, physical rehab, economic
recovery, and mental anguish will linger for years, only to
resurface annually on the anniversary of that incident.
In Palm Beach County, we are using creative strategies to
steer more funding toward recovery. We have drafted a family
assistance and survivor care center plan and have exercised it
twice and have plans to exercise it more. Addressing mental
health and behavioral health symptoms immediately after a mass
shooting event can help mitigate the long-term post-traumatic
stress, depression, and suicides.
Our next phase for community resiliency centers will serve
as an ongoing resource and referral center for those affected
by such events.
Another example about mitigation. We all remember, it is in
my mind permanently, the photo of the single home still
standing, nearly unscathed, on Mexico Beach, Florida, after the
entire neighborhood that was surrounding that home was
annihilated by Hurricane Michael. The three-story home was
built on 40-foot pilings, constructed of reinforced concrete,
steel cables, and a metal roof. Estimates of the construction
costs were only about 15 to 20 percent more than standards
costs. This may sound expensive, but only the windows in one
room, a set of stairs, and an air-conditioning unit were
damaged by the storm; a far cry from the total rebuild costs
throughout the catastrophic destruction done in the surrounding
neighborhood.
Even the private sector is engaged in litigation. Florida
Power & Light, the largest power company in the United States
with over 5 million customers, has made over $4 billion in
investments. And I am here to prove, to say that over the last
3 years of storms, we have noticed that and have seen how our
electrical grid system has remained more storm resilient.
The takeaway here, ladies and gentlemen, is building
materials matter, building codes work, and mitigation works.
Let's talk just briefly about sustainability. Hurricane
Hermine was the first hurricane to make landfall in Florida
since Wilma in 2005. Emergency managers worked hard during that
11-year funding drought to keep our partners engaged,
interested, and enthusiastic about mitigation. We shared best
practices, success stories, and maintained our project priority
list, which went unfunded for years. We put a lot of time and
effort and resources into mitigation without any incentive.
Luckily, the Emergency Management Performance Grants, EMPG,
they fund local emergency management programs to staff and
promulgate those mitigated campaigns such as the local
mitigation strategy. Local mitigation strategies are ongoing
programs that need to survive, even during disaster droughts.
However, local mitigation strategies must have the resources
behind them to maintain them, to provide the mitigation
projects, to facilitate them, and make sure that they are
shovel ready. Further support of the EMPG program or at least
maintenance of the EMPG program will assure that mitigation
remains at the forefront of local preparedness programs
nationwide.
Let me repeat, however, that when communities are trying to
dig themselves out of a major disaster, it seems odd to me to
throw millions of mitigation dollars at them at that time.
Let me conclude by recommending a rethink of the current
mitigation programs and funding. Let's flip them over 180
degrees so they are right-side up. Let's change the focus to
mitigation and less on cleaning up after the fact. As with
Project Impact, let's showcase creative resiliency strategies,
best practices, and let's celebrate success stories instead of
incentivizing salvage operations. Finally, let's sustain local
emergency management programs which are at the forefront of
resiliency.
Thank you again.
[The statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Hastings. Thank you.
Ms. Toney.
STATEMENT OF HEATHER MCTEER TONEY, NATIONAL FIELD DIRECTOR,
MOMS CLEAN AIR FORCE, AND FORMER MAYOR, GREENVILLE, MISSISSIPPI
Ms. Toney. Thank you.
Chairman Hastings, Ranking Member Woodall, Chairman
McGovern, thank you for being here, and members of the
subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify about
the role of resiliency in facing the impacts of natural
disasters.
My name is Heather Toney. I proudly serve as national field
director for Moms Clean Air Force. We are an organization of
over 1.2 million moms, dads, grandmas, all kinds of folks that
are united against air pollution and climate change for the
sake of our children's health. Now, my road to this position
came in travel through public service. I previously served as
regional administrator for the Environmental Protection
Agency's southeast region under President Obama. And before
that, a former major of my hometown of Greenville, Mississippi,
for two terms.
When our first major flood hit in 2008, I was beginning my
second term and really focusing on infrastructure development
in the city. I had spent my entire first term bringing the city
back from the brinks of financial ruin, as we were heavily in
debt and needed rebuilding badly.
So after carefully cutting and saving, we were excited to
do things like street rebuilding and preparing our city's
foundation for economic development. But when the northeast
winter snow began melting and flowing downriver to our banks,
we saw that the river was going to be high and higher than it
was before. It reached flood stage and stayed there for over a
month. Homes were flooded, fields were lost, water lines broke,
sewer lines leaked.
What I was not prepared for was the impact that this would
have on our city budget. See, cities are required to submit a
balanced budget to the State no later than September 15, as the
new budget year begins on October 1. For this reason, most
cities begin budget sessions in late July to August, in order
to adequately prepare, debate, and vote. When an extreme
weather event such as a flood, hurricane, or storm hits during
the spring or summer months, the city must allocate funds to
address the need, without the assurance of money to replace the
money that has been used.
For example, the money used for police and fire overtime
due to a Federal emergency extreme weather crisis are not only
not budgeted, they are not replaced in time for the current
budget cycle due to the length of time it takes to receive a
Federal declaration, assessment of damages, and then receipt of
funds.
In 2011, when the crisis flood waters returned, I had
learned a few lessons. Fellow mayors reached out to each other
to provide immediate assistance. At the time, Harvey Johnson,
mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, sent public work crews with
concrete barriers to help us fill the gaps in our levee system.
In turn, once we were secured, we sent our emergency management
personnel to Vicksburg, Mississippi, to assist them in
preparing for the flood waters headed their way.
Even though no one can budget for a storm, we saved as much
as we could. We had to forego needed city assessment purchases
like garbage trucks and things that citizens had prepared for.
We worked with local churches to help prepare the community for
the impeding devastations. We relied on each other because each
other was all that we had.
I recall my Facebook post to the community on May 22 of
2011, and it read: Toured Vicksburg's flooded area this morning
with mayor Paul E. Winfield. He is doing a great job and is on
top of the problem. Discuss next steps for our towns with
respect to cleanup and restoration for residents and
businesses. I worshipped with the good folks at Travelers Rest
Worship Center. God is in control.
As I sit before you today, I still believe that God is in
control, and he is trusting us to use the God-given good sense
to trust the science all around us that tell us these storms
will worsen it we don't act.
While I am no longer mayor today, my good friend and
classmate Errick Simmons is mayor. And he was on MSNBC just
last week sharing that the 2019 floods, which have come yet
again, have assessed the municipal damages to the city of over
$4 million. In 2011, mine was simply $600,000. With a city of a
38.6 percent poverty rate, making the necessary repairs with an
annual street budget of only $300,000, you can see that the
burden lies heavily on poor people, and we are trying to figure
out how to make sure we survive.
When we looked over the numbers for 2019, $800,000 in
damages to roads and bridges alone are what people are driving
on and trying to get to work and get their children to school
each and every day. The new budget session begins on October 1.
Today is September 24. If we don't act, we continue to put poor
people, families, and children in danger. This is not an
opportunity for us to continue a debate; it is an opportunity
for us to make a decision that saves lives.
And we have the tools, if we work together and use them.
And I believe wholeheartedly that we can. And for that reason,
I am happy to be here and answer any questions of this
committee. Thank you.
[The statement of Ms. Toney follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Hastings. Thank you.
Mr. Piotti.
STATEMENT OF JOHN PIOTTI, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF AMERICAN
FARMLAND TRUST
Mr. Piotti. Chairman Hastings, Ranking Member Woodall,
Chairman McGovern, it is a pleasure to be here today. Thanks
for the opportunity to testify.
I applaud the committee for dealing with this issue of
resiliency. It is critically important to our farmers and our
rural communities, and your purpose aligns closely with the
work of the organization I run, American Farmland Trust.
Since our founding in 1980, AFT has helped permanently
protect 6.5 million acres of farmland with agricultural
conservation easements, making sure that that land will forever
be available, not only to grow food, but to provide a range of
environmental services, including those that increase
resiliency. At the same time, we have helped advance farming
practices on millions of additional acres that have also
enhanced resiliency. And we have promoted policies and provided
services that have helped over a half million farmers stay in
business.
AFT, for decades, has undertaken a combination of research
and policy work and programming in multiple States, but my
purpose today is not to recount any of that, but rather, to
outline some of the issues that we see out in the field where
it is essential to America's farmers and rural America that we
take steps to enhance resiliency.
I am going highlight four areas. The first, how better
farming practices boost resiliency. AFT has spent much of its
history helping farmers improve soil health through practices
that include reduced tillage, plowing up the ground less, and
active use of cover crops and crop rotations. Building soil
health has numerous benefits, including these:
Healthier soil soaks up more water and can store more of
it. And this, by keeping water on the fields, reduces the
runoff to streams and rivers, and thereby, reduces the severity
of flooding.
And you can see this yourself if you go out and drive
around in the community after a heavy rain. When there is bare
ground, you see runoff. And when there is cover on the field,
be it crop residue or cover crops, you don't see it. Everything
seems much better.
The second point, maintaining fields with cover crops and
perennials, or even with the residue from the last harvest of
crops, keeps soil in place during periods of heavy flooding.
And farms managed with these practices will be able to bounce
back much more quickly after an extreme event.
Third, keeping soil on farm fields will also reduce
recovery costs downstream, because there will be less sediment
to clean up.
There are many examples of how this past spring's heavy
rainfall has prevented farmers from planting or forced them to
plant late. You heard Chairman Hastings mention a few at the
outset. Yet AFT has heard from farmers who use practices like
no till and cover crops that they were often able to farm much
earlier than their neighbors. One of the most commonly heard
comments was that regardless of how much rainfall there was,
farmers who had cover crops saw little soil erosion back on
their field sooner.
The second point I want to make, agricultural conservation
easements can help mitigate flooding. Farmland provides a
natural means of tempering storm water and flood waters. It is
often the development that could occur on farmland that funnels
storm water in ways that exasperate the negative impacts.
Hurricane Harvey, which hit Texas in 2017, as we will all
remember, is a real example of this. So much farmland around
Houston had been developed that the city no longer retained a
natural resiliency. Sadly, this is happening in Houston right
now again.
Another example of where development has led to increased
flooding is in the pioneer valley of western Massachusetts. The
devastation that occurred as a result of Hurricane Irene, that
Chairman McGovern knows all of too well, many farms were under
water. And sadly, a lot of soil washed down the Connecticut
River into the ocean.
The irony is that the farms were hurt by the fact that
there is less farmland in the area now than there once was.
Development occurring on farmland puts remaining farmland at a
higher risk. This doesn't need to be what happens. We can use
agricultural conservation easements to mitigate potential
flooding.
A few States are using the Federal Hazard Mitigation Grant
Program to buy flood plain conservation easements. The first
application that we are aware of occurred in the late 1990s in
Illinois, following flooding along the Mississippi. Another
example was in 2001 in Nebraska. Yet sadly, these are rare
instances. FEMA needs to raise awareness of how conservation
easements can be used to target agricultural lands that would
be a natural buffer to flooding.
The third item that I want to identify is how farms can
play a critical role in flood attenuation and groundwater
recharge. We are talking about floods here, but we have to
remember that through much of the country we also have a
problem with water supply, right? And there is an opportunity,
at times, to address both issues simultaneously.
In California, farmers are creatively working to both
minimize the negative impacts of floods and help save flood
water for future use. And the written testimony provides a
couple of examples that I won't go into now, but the point is
we need more innovative projects of this sort.
And the fourth point I wish to make is that farms and
farmers also enhance resiliency in other ways. So far today, I
have been talking about how farms can help buffer floods and
storms through on-the-ground practices, but I want to mention
two other ways that farms enhance resiliency.
First, I will stress how the economic and environmental
health of so many rural communities is tied directly to the
vibrancy of farming. And as we all know, the overall health of
rural communities is critical to their resiliency and capacity
for adaptation. Thus, it is critical that farming remain vital
if rural communities are to remain healthy.
We know that many farm communities are struggling for a
variety of reasons that are beyond today's hearing. But my
point is that any strategy designed to enhance rural resiliency
must have at its core efforts to help strengthen farming.
Second, I want to mention the roles that farmers often play
in rural communities in a crisis. Farmers more often than not
are key contributors to a community, perhaps as volunteer
firemen or as first responders. Beyond that, farmers often
possess exactly what is needed in time of crisis, be that heavy
equipment, or the know-how to use it, or stored food stuffs, or
barns or warehouses that can be used to shelter people or
supplies. Simply put, farms and farmers are essential to rural
resiliency.
I thank you for the opportunity, and I look forward to any
questions.
[The statement of Mr. Piotti follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Hastings. Ms. Hamilton, just before you begin, the
chairman is going to have to leave to go to a meeting. And so I
can set the parameters here for the remaining portion of the
hearing as well, at 4 o'clock, the Democrats have a caucus
scheduled and many of the members here are going to have to
attend that. I don't have to attend. I can if I choose, but I
am here for you all. So I am going to be prepared to forgo my
questions so that I can hear from the members on both sides.
But right now, Chairman, if you have anything you wish to
contribute to us or leave a couple of questions with us.
Mr. McGovern. The question is what is our assignment here?
We are hearing some great conversation, and I know that there
will be even greater conversation as we go on. But, what are
the two things that Congress must do right now to help our
communities become more resilient to strong damaging storms?
That is after everybody has testified.
But let me just thank Chairman Hastings and Ranking Member
Woodall for holding this subcommittee hearing. And I think it
comes as no surprise that Chairman Hastings would focus his
first hearing on something so important to his constituents
and, frankly, to the entire Nation as to how to protect our
communities from dangerous and expensive storms.
And this issue of resiliency, as Mr. Woodall pointed out,
is being discussed by a lot of committees, but it is something,
quite frankly, we should have been discussing a long time ago,
right. And so I appreciate what I have heard up to this point.
I have your testimonies, which I read in advance. I appreciate
that as well.
But I will turn this back over to Chairman Hastings. And,
again, thank you for your leadership.
Mr. Hastings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Hamilton.
STATEMENT OF KATHERINE HAMILTON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ADVANCED
ENERGY MANAGEMENT ALLIANCE
Ms. Hamilton. Thank you Chairman McGovern, thank you
Chairman Hastings, thank you Ranking Member Woodall, and the
entire committee, for inviting me to testify today. My name is
Katherine Hamilton. I am executive director of the Advanced
Energy Management Alliance. We focus on customer resources that
can provide cost-effective, resilient, flexible, and clean
solutions to our Nation's electric grid.
AEMA works to ensure that resources such as rooftop solar,
demand response, energy efficiency, smart inverters, batteries,
thermal storage like hot water heaters, fuel cells, combined
heat and power, microgrids, electric vehicles, and geothermal
heat pumps are taken into consideration to provide resilience
to our electric grid.
While Federal agencies give grants for rebuilding,
preparation in advance of these events using flexible
technologies can lessen the burden both on the communities and
on the government.
Distributed energy resource deployment has provided
resilience to our grid, whether because of extreme temperature,
natural disaster, or even the solar eclipse. The ability to
fail fast and recover fast is particularly suited to these
resources. As far back as Hurricane Sandy, microgrids in New
York and New Jersey enabled universities to continue operation
in the face of massive power outages, providing a haven to
others without electricity.
PJM Interconnection credited demand response with helping
the grid withstand the polar vortex in January of 2014. As
multiple winter peaks were set, demand response, which is only
required to respond during summer peaks, reduce load most than
most generating resources, allowing the system to function
reliably.
After Hurricane Irma, demand response helped maintain
balance between supply and demand to stabilize the flow to
electric grid. As thousands of customers were rapidly having
their power restored, demand threatened to outpace supply and
cause additional blackouts. Tampa Electric Company had the
foresight to install a diverse set of distributed resources.
As Hurricane Harvey unleashed trillions of gallons of
rainwater along the Gulf Coast, there was a range of energy
impacts, including coal-to-gas switching as coal piles were too
wet for conveyer systems to handle. Texas Medical Center, the
largest medical facility in the world, was able to sustain
critical loads throughout the storm, thanks to a combined heat
and power system which operated without interruption.
During heat waves in California, hundreds of energy storage
facilities in San Francisco were called upon to operate
collectively as virtual power plants, reducing demand on an
overtaxed grid. And during the solar eclipse in 2017, over
750,000 consumers lowered their Nest thermostats to reduce
demand by 700 megawatts as electrical systems across the
country were displaced into temporary darkness.
Given wildfire season in California, and even today, the
calling of public safety outages there, microgrids and other
distributed resources will only become more important. It is
critical that the Federal Government provide best practice
planning and technical assistance for at-risk communities
through the FEMA Pre-Disaster Mitigation Grant Program.
We need Federal programs also that can leverage private
financing. An example of a local organization that has provided
resilience services is Florida's Solar and Energy Loan Fund,
SELF. It is a CDFI that raises low-cost capital from private
entities and then delivers clean energy and climate resilience,
like roof repairs and replacement, impact windows, hurricane
shutters, in underserved neighborhoods. SELF has helped finance
fortified roofs that reduce home insurance rates by as much as
50 percent, enabling homeowners to pay for those projects, keep
their insurance, and lower their energy bills from the solar
rooftop power.
Having a national nonprofit entity, such as the National
Climate Bank Act that was introduced in the Senate, could fund
regional resilience projects and enable more States to create
and feed institutions like SELF that serve frontline
communities.
The Department of Defense has identified the most at-risk
bases for resilience needs in States as diverse as Florida,
Georgia, Texas, Virginia, Utah, Oklahoma, Missouri, Maryland.
Forts Benning in Georgia and Gordon in Georgia have both
established resilience plans with solar energy as a key
component.
These examples and many others in my written testimony
illustrate that customer-based distributed resources that are
available today can provide critical services to the grid when
it needs them the most. These technologies and financing
mechanisms are resources we should implement before a hurricane
strikes our coast, a flood destroys our business, or a heat
wave endangers our most vulnerable populations.
I urge the committee to take these solutions into
consideration as we look broadly and strategically about how as
a Nation we prepare for and respond to events that are beyond
our control. The very solutions we choose could have the co-
benefits of reduced cost of and time for recovery, increased
jobs and economic development for communities at risk, and
reduced environmental impact through clean, flexible
technologies.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify before the
committee.
[The statement of Ms. Hamilton follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Hastings. Dr. Phaup.
STATEMENT OF MARVIN PHAUP, RESEARCH SCHOLAR AND PROFESSIONAL
LECTURER, TRACHTENBERG SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY AND PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Mr. Phaup. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Woodall, and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to speak with you
about this important and timely topic. I am especially
appreciative for the chance to bring a budget and economics
perspective to your discussions. I am also grateful for this
chance to briefly summarize and perhaps clarify my written
statement.
I also would thank Mr. Woodall for his kind and generous
introduction. But I was reminded of a response once given by
James Dickey, who was at one time poet laureate of the U.S. and
also a Clemson football player, who said after a similar
introduction, I wish my now deceased parents could have been
here. My father would have been proud, but my mother would have
believed every word. So thank you for that.
The gist of my statement is really pretty simple. It is to
recommend that you consider integrating all Federal spending
for disasters into the regular budget process. That would
require giving up the use of an emergency spending to fund a
significant portion of outlays for disasters. Those funds would
not be lost to disaster relief and recovery however, but
rather, would be provided through the process I described in my
written statement.
I make this recommendation because I think it would enhance
the effectiveness and efficiency of existing Federal spending
for disasters. It would also be consistent with current efforts
to improve overall Federal budget process.
There appears to be three distinct elements to our disaster
policy. One, of course, is providing immediate relief to those
who are suffering severe loss. And over the longer term, to
promote mitigation of losses, especially in rebuilding
structures that have been lost, but also, making--thirdly--new
investments to increase the efficiency of both of the two
previous objectives.
My impression is that most of the money for relief appears
to come from the regular appropriation, but certainly very
large amounts for mitigation and investment are provided under
the emergency designation, which is importantly outside the
regular budget process and free of Budget Act control.
From the viewpoint of specialist in budget response, the
current process may seem highly desirable, but there is a
downside to this current budget treatment. It makes spending
for emergencies appear falsely to be free. It appears that
nothing has to be given up or sacrificed by the decision to
allocate resources to this purpose. No one else's spending
needs to be reduced. No one's taxes or fees need to be
increased now.
When the cost of an activity in a decision process is zero,
it is rational to keep spending more of it until the benefit of
the last unit is zero. That means spending too much for one
purpose relative to the benefits of alternative uses of those
resources. It also encourages spending on low value uses of
those funds.
Congress created the congressional budget process to remind
itself that resources are scarce in relation to the beneficial
uses to which they may be put and that nothing is free. With
scarcity, everything--every decision to use resources in one
place requires something else to be sacrificed.
As weak and as troubled as the current budget process is,
it remains the only salient source of the service of reminding
us that using resources for one purpose are costly in terms of
others. That reminder is useful in general and for specific
policies, including disaster policy, because the limit on
spending means that every opportunity cost means you--every use
of resources means you are giving of something else. That limit
when present forces us to think long and hard about how we use
the available resources available in terms of their
effectiveness and efficiency.
Fully integrating disaster spending into the Federal budget
through the process I have outlined in my written statement
could motivate the clear and thorough reconsideration of
current policy that the chairman referred to, and it could do
so with respect to improving its performance with regards to
equity, efficiency, and sustainability. Hence, my principal
recommendation for action is that you consider this change in
the budgetary treatment of disasters.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Phaup follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Hastings. Thank you very much.
Mr. Woodall.
Mr. Woodall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Phaup, you explained in budgetary terms what I think
Mr. Johnson was explaining in man on the ground by dealing with
disaster terms. Did I understand your testimony correctly, Mr.
Johnson, that we can take the same amount of dollars before a
hurricane and after a hurricane and we are going to get a whole
lot more bang for our buck before that hurricane happens?
Mr. Johnson. Yes.
Mr. Woodall. What I don't know is how to allocate those
resources. Chairman Hastings showed me the picture that you
referenced. But in Georgia--of course we are in the cut, we
have been very fortunate during hurricane season--if we went
through and built everything on 30-foot pilings and reinforced
everything with--built it all out of reinforced concrete and
cabling, might not be the highest and best use of those
resources because we are more 1 in 100 years as opposed to 1
every 5 years.
Is it clear to folks who are in harm's way what that
allocation of resources looks like? To Dr. Phaup's point, I
only spend each dollar once. How I make sure I am spending that
dollar on the family that is most likely to be affected as
opposed to one that is much less.
Mr. Johnson. Yes. Our local mitigation strategy prioritizes
all of our hazards. We have 12 hazards in south Florida.
Earthquakes and volcanoes, luckily, are not one of our hazards.
So obviously, we don't look at mitigating in those areas. Our
number one hazard is flooding. Our project priority list, all
of the projects on top of that list are all of our flooding and
storm drainage type projects.
We--I worked in Miami Dade as well as the assistant
director there, and we had it during the Project Impact years,
and we were actually paying--or through Project Impact we were
providing shutters for low-income and elderly populations. And
that was just a little bit of money up front for the cost of
those shutters, lower their insurance, it reduced my sheltering
population, because those folks won't go to a shelter, and it
kept them around. It kept them in the city just like we saw--
contrary of what we saw of Katrina. When those folks leave and
they don't come back, they abandon their home, the recovery is
so much more devastating, and I question how much better off
those folks are than when they left kind of thing.
So that is the short--that is the long answer to your
question, that there are a lot of ways that when we, in looking
at the variety of hazards, looking at our priority of our
hazards, we can target that money and make it most effective.
Mr. Woodall. And how do I make sure you keep that skin in
the game? Again, to Dr. Phaup's point, the opportunity cost on
free Federal money is very low.
I go up to Maryland and I see beautiful solar panels all
across the northern roofs under beautiful oak trees, because we
subsidized things to such a degree that we didn't need to put
it on a south-facing roof and on and on.
Recognizing there will be a Federal partnership here, how
do I make sure you are using the free dollar the very best you
possibly can?
Mr. Johnson. We are already doing--we are already following
a process, and that is our local mitigation strategy. And our
local mitigation steering committee is comprised of individuals
and representatives and organizations throughout the community.
So they are the ones that help prioritize our community and
they are the ones that help understand it so it is not, you
know, my piece of the money or my chunk of the money. They are
the ones that then prioritize those projects. And again, if you
go back and look at our PPL, you will see that just in concert
with our number one risk is our top number of priorities in
terms of flooding mitigation.
Ms. Toney. May I also respond?
Mr. Woodall. I was going to ask. Because since you had the
smaller disaster on your watch, the larger disaster on the next
watch, I was actually going to ask what Greenville did
differently, knowing you were going to--that this could happen
again tomorrow, if that changed your local budget. But, please.
Ms. Toney. Yes, sir. I wanted to sort of just add,
piggyback onto an answer here. Because we were talking about
flooding, but if you recall in Georgia in Atlanta, Snowmageddon
in 2014, where the roads were shut down. And because of the
extreme ice and weather that came through Atlanta, you know,
entire industries were closed. And these same mitigation
dollars would be able to be used in those instances because the
infrastructure in those locations rely on mitigation dollars in
order to ensure that they are up to par and sustainable to be
able to deal with that in the future.
So, for example, Delta Airlines that is located there as
well uses and can leverage this type of funding to assist them
to prepare in the future and make sure that their runways are
still able to move in the way that they need to move. I believe
Coca-Cola, Mercedes-Benz are also two organizations that are in
that area that are able to use and leverage those dollars in
advance.
Now, to go to Greenville's situation, I think it is a
little different scenario, because while there were certainly
lessons we learned between 2007 to 2011, to now 2019, the
reality we are embracing is that these storms are coming
faster, stronger, and they have more water in them. And so we
are working very closely. I know the mayor there, and I am
quite positive that the Congressman from the Second
Congressional District, Congressman Thompson, is also very
vested in working to make sure that they are able to look at
sustainable opportunities and really build such that, as these
storms continue to come, they can maintain and really play
catchup, because that is what is happening.
Mr. Woodall. From that local perspective, you are right,
you have got needs across the board, right? One disaster goes
through your entire annual budget by a factor of 10. I think
about the money we spent in Flint, Michigan, after the fact
instead of before the fact; we could have repaired that system
for a fraction of the cost of mitigating the damage. But if I
go to small town mayors across the country who have failing
water systems, those mayors still haven't come up with the
extra billion dollars to fix that system. They are going to
wait until the catastrophic event happens and their partnership
with the Federal Government changes.
What can I do to encourage--here you are a moderate to low-
income community, I still need you doing more. What does that
leveraging look like to make it more valuable tomorrow than it
is today, to take that preemptive step that is going to take $1
out of a different pot that you would have otherwise spent it
on?
Ms. Toney. I will give you a great example, Spartanburg,
South Carolina, where they were able to--in a low-income
community of color, they were able to utilize roughly a
$300,000 EPA grant that was looking at the fact that they were
in a community that was susceptible to flooding, susceptible to
different types of extreme weather issues, they were able to in
that community leverage that funding to work with, again, local
industries, talk about revitalizing their grid, looking--
partnering with FEMA, with HUD, with EPA, with Department of
Transportation. And over the course of about 10 years,
including revitalizing their waste water treatment plant, their
different methods of just delivering to the community and
educating the community at the same time, they turned $300,000
into roughly $300 million.
So I think they are a case study in the fact that it can
work when you do it ahead of time, when you involve and include
local people, and you include all aspects of the community.
There are success stories in this country.
Mr. Woodall. I am going to tell Jeff Duncan you were
bragging about his district up here.
Dr. Phaup, let me ask you, because the--what divides us so
often turns into--is a policy--is a policy debate. As a
budgeteer, I want to see us forward fund things, because I too
believe we make worse--certainly make worse decisions on the
backside, more importantly, somebody's life has been affected
that perhaps we could have intervened on their behalf ahead of
time and prevented it. The dollars we spent on FEMA trailers
after Katrina were not dollars well spent, if we could have
spent that same dollar to keep a family in their homes ahead of
that disaster.
But my question is, I come to this from a conservative side
of the aisle, but I believe if we did more forward funding of
disasters, knowing that the intensity and severity is
increasing, that we would actually change the debate about the
nature of climate change, the nature of mitigation in general.
Right now, I don't feel the impact because it is an automatic
spend in a disaster bill. If I had to pay for it up front, now
I am making the same decisions that Spartanburg and Greenville
are having to make trading different things off. And if the
cost of doing nothing is a $50 billion annual upfront disaster
appropriation, maybe I am more interested in partnering with
Mr. Hastings on whatever that next environmental bill may be.
Through your budgetary lens, do you see an opportunity for
forward funding to be a unifying event in Congress? Because
ordinarily, trying to parse out the dollars ends up dividing us
and leads to more discord.
Mr. Phaup. Yes, I think I do. I mean, I would say that, you
know, getting a big--getting the biggest bang for a buck, doing
the most good to reduce disaster losses doesn't seem like to me
there is much--there should be much partisan at stake there. I
think it is a bipartisan desire to have a disaster policy that
helps people in need and reduces the total overall cost of
these losses, meaning that we would keep spending money for
disaster mitigation up to the point where spending $1 saved at
least $1 in losses. And for all those dollars that save more
than a $1, it is a great buy, and it is a great buy for people
on both sides of the aisle.
Mr. Woodall. Having to put a number on what inaction costs
us, Mr. Chairman, is a worthwhile exercise, so it goes beyond
the scope of what we are doing here.
I have taken too much time. I yield back.
Mr. Hastings. Mr. Morelle.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I must admit, when I
saw that you were holding this subcommittee hearing I was
excited about it. I think this is a really important topic, and
I am going to just point to a couple of things, both for me
personally and my district.
The other thing I was excited about is the Rules Committee
is the only committee where you are not limited to 5 minutes in
questioning witnesses, but I can see my time is going to be
limited anyway, so foiled again.
But I do want to thank all the witnesses, and I want to
thank the chair and the ranking member for what I think is a
very, very important issue.
Obviously, folks have touched on the increased occurrence
of weather events that come from climate instability. I am
reminded, as I think our grandmothers would say, an ounce of
prevention is worth a pound of cure. And that certainly should
be, sort of, the theme of this hearing.
Just from my perspective, my district is upstate New York,
Rochester, New York. I sit on the shore, my district, of Lake
Ontario. For those who have not been up to the Great Lakes,
please come and visit. I know Ms. Scanlon has spent some time
there. Ninety-four-thousand square miles of the Great Lakes,
the five lakes that make up the Great Lakes; 10,000 coastal
miles that we share between the Canadian border and the U.S.--
or the Canadian and U.S. coastline. So it is a massive--21
percent of all fresh surface water in the world is in the Great
Lakes.
And what we have seen in my district, we have seen
devastation in 2 out of the last 3 years, both in 2017, 2019.
Significantly higher water levels that really start in Superior
and go work their way all the way down. Lake Ontario is the
bottom of the five lakes, in terms of elevation, so we end up
seeing it sometimes years later. A couple years, believe it or
not, it takes the water to flow.
But what we know is that it has caused significant
disruption, significant property loss and damage over the last
several years. When I was in the State legislature, before
coming here, I got appropriated nearly $100 million for just
along the New York border of the Great Lakes to deal with the
devastation. This year, Governor Cuomo has called for $300
million resiliency by the State of New York.
And so, as I look at this, obviously, this is very local
and very personal.
During my tenure in the State legislature, I was also the
chair of the Insurance Committee and looking at property
casualty losses for the State of New York, which included, of
course, Long Island and New York City and their proximity to
the ocean and Long Island Sound. And I was involved in
something called the National Conference on Insurance
Legislators to look at resiliency and even suggesting that
there might be ways to reduce premiums for those individuals
who did the appropriate things, as long as they were
actuarially sound, to reduce premiums based on the types of
investments you would make in resilient activities around
property casualty loss.
So this is really, in my mind, very, very important. I am a
proud member of the American Flood Coalition, working alongside
our partners here in Congress to identify and invest in
solutions that help protect communities. I am pushing the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers to do a coastal resiliency study for
the Great Lakes, which was in our appropriation process. And I
co-lead that with my fellow New Yorker, Representative John
Katko, in a bipartisan effort to do that.
So I say all of this sort of as background, because I think
this is truly, truly important. And, clearly, you see more and
more efforts aimed at a conversation about resiliency. And
finding the dollars is the question, which Mr. Woodall rightly
points out.
But I thought if I could, just a couple questions. And
perhaps I will start with you, Mr. Johnson. You mentioned Palm
Beach County was one of the first jurisdictions in Florida to
draft a post-disaster redevelopment plan. And, obviously, as we
are readjusting, what takeaways can we take from you about
building a robust plan that places in my community can learn
from as we deal with this flooding? What are those challenges,
and how do you get the parties together and get people
effectively on the same page?
Mr. Johnson. Well, getting parties together at the table is
a lot easier said than done. But, again, that is--again, kind
of looking at the--what we tried to do was, kind of, look at
our number-one priority, which was flooding. And it is
unquestionably flooding in south Florida. Most of our land is
between 7 and 8 feet above sea level.
So when you determine, in terms of flooding--because
flooding is definitely an apolitical element. So we coach it
all as pretty much flooding. And we think that when we look at
all of our storm water drainage programs and forward pumping
strategies and whatnot, we are trying to accomplish the same
thing, and so it is kind of a discrete way of dealing with it,
again, making it more apolitical.
Again, I want to go back to--the other solution, again, is
to--I think it needs to tip the process on its head. Because,
you know, the National Flood Insurance Program essentially
incentivizes people to build in coastal and flood-prone areas,
and we have to stop doing that and we have to turn it around
the other way. Because we know how well that is working.
So, you know, just those kinds of strategies that need to
be uniform and community-wide. And I am not just talking local;
I am talking State and Federal.
Mr. Morelle. And what assistance or incentives do you think
the Federal Government doesn't have in place right now that you
would encourage to help build these local plans and assist
local governments in developing these robust plans?
Mr. Johnson. I think the plans are in place, especially in
Florida. You know, a local mitigation strategy is required of
all of the counties. So I think that the plans are there.
I think the reality is, the fact that we have to wait until
a major disaster occurs in order for us to access HMGP funds,
again, it is kind of built backwards. If we could do more of a
project impact-type model and less of the HMGP model and post-
disaster cleanup and salvage model, I think that is the way to
do it.
Mr. Morelle. Mr. Piotti--am I pronouncing that right,
sir?--you talked about farming practices to increase
resiliency. What barriers are there that the Federal Government
might have in place that we ought to be thinking about removing
to help encourage that?
Mr. Piotti. Well, the Federal Government, primarily through
the farm bill, the conservation title of the farm bill,
provides a whole range of information and services and, at
times, funding for farmers to adopt better farming practices,
but we need more. So it is a shadow of what is incorporated in
other parts of the farm bill.
So more conservation practices would be helpful, but
building off Bill's point, this notion of getting in front of
issues is so important. And funding for agricultural
conservation easements, potentially targeting easements on
property that would be great places to store storm water or be
a natural buffer to flooding, would be really great.
Now, that program right now serves about 8 or 10 percent of
the applicants, and there would be a lot more applicants for it
if folks thought the chances of being funded was higher. But
that is an example of how farmland protection could, in a
proactive way, do exactly what Bill was referring to.
Mr. Morelle. Ms. Toney, I am just curious--and I apologize.
This is probably my last question. I apologize, Mr. Chair, for
going on at some length here.
But any lessons that you can teach us about what you
experienced that would make the Federal process, if it is too
cumbersome, less cumbersome, more efficient, and more helpful
to the local communities as you are going through this process?
Ms. Toney. Yes, sir. I believe that immediate funding of
emergency management personnel is extraordinarily helpful to
cities. They are going to expend that funding immediately
anyway. And so those are, like, first top-line expenses that
can be reimbursed.
Typically, a damage assessment is required in those
communities, and it does take a while to have officials to come
down, do a damage assessment. It is a cumbersome process to get
the paperwork done and then approved. And that is if you get a
Federal declaration. Because cities are doing this on the hopes
that they get a Federal declaration. To have a more streamlined
process would not only be effective, it would help cities to
save money.
That is all, again, on the back end. And I have to agree
with my colleagues, the more you put on the front end, and
maybe giving assessment and climate resiliency technical
assistance to communities to help them prepare in advance,
would greatly reduce this amount on the back end.
Mr. Morelle. So I can't resist--and I will make this my
last question, Mr. Chair, but----
Mr. Hastings. I thought the other one was.
Mr. Morelle. I may have misspoken. I meant my second-to-
last. Now this is really my last.
But I am curious if you have anything to observe about the
link between flooding and toxic algae, which we are starting to
see in the Great Lakes. And this is a growing, growing problem.
If you have any thoughts about that.
Ms. Toney. Yes, sir. It is not only a problem in the Great
Lakes; it is a problem in the Florida coast lands; it is a
problem in Mississippi. I live in Oxford, Mississippi, and we
just heard about algae blooms that are coming up in a community
not too far from us.
So when you do see increased flooding, especially for the
length of time that we saw flooding--it began flooding, heavy
flooding in Mississippi--I believe we reached flood stage mid-
February, and we came out of flood stage in July. The Army
Corps of Engineers has been activated since December of 2018.
And so, with that length of time and that pressure and that
amount of water, it is certainly not only going to continue to
create situations where you have algae blooms that do reach far
across the Southeast but that you see other toxicities as the
farmers are working on issues with runoff from their fields
because they are flooded. So it creates huge problems that we
are working to resolve now.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you.
I don't have any other questions other than to again remark
on, first of all, what a great panel this is and, secondly,
what a distinguished gentleman the chair of this committee is
and how much I value and admire him. Thank you.
Mr. Hastings. Thank you so very much.
Toward that end, Dr. Burgess has been very gracious in
allowing--knowing that you all have to go to your 4 o'clock
meeting, he is going to forego his questions. So we will go
with you, Ms. Scanlon.
Ms. Scanlon. Thank you very much, Dr. Burgess.
Thank you, Chairman Hastings.
And thank you all very much for your testimony today. I
appreciate the opportunity to address the impact on our
communities of natural disasters and how we can build
resilience in those communities.
Mr. Morelle talked a little bit about the shores of Lake
Ontario, where my parents' home has been sandbagged for 2 out
of the last 3 years--and that is something that had never
happened before--because of the rising lake waters there.
In the region where I live, we have had increasing extreme
weather events, including a lot of flooding, sudden rainstorms,
and tornadoes in southeastern Pennsylvania. That has not really
been a thing in the past.
And I don't think it serves any of us well when Congress is
constantly playing catch-up, you know, and aid risks being
delayed or denied due to political or regional rivalries or
infighting. So I think this is a great panel to talk about
these things.
Ms. Hamilton, you talked a little bit about building a
cleaner, more reliable, resilient, affordable grid. And I was
really interested, I don't know if everyone has this, but the
committee had these renewable-energy jobs. And if we can submit
that to the record by unanimous consent----
[This document is printed on pages 93-94]
Mr. Hastings. Without objection.
Ms. Scanlon. In looking at that, my State, Pennsylvania,
lags behind in some of these things. And it has been kind of a
frustration, as a former school board member, when other States
would have incentives to push for some of these more renewable,
resilient energy pieces.
Can you comment on what we need to do across the country to
get that kind of a grid and that kind of resilience?
Ms. Hamilton. Sure. Absolutely. And thank you very much for
that question, Ms. Scanlon.
And Pennsylvania has a great climate plan that really talks
about climate resilience and distributed energy resources as
part of that. There are a few things that we need to do that
are steps that aren't enormous but can have an enormous impact.
One is tax credits, making sure that those still exist for
technologies like energy storage and others that can provide
backup. And Rochester is a big hub for energy storage
technology. It is also one of the coldest places I have ever
visited.
But another big piece of this is actually leveraging
private capital, so the government doesn't have to take this
all on its own. There are over a dozen green banks that have
popped up throughout the country. And this is something that
Pennsylvania and any other State could do, but we need
something on the Federal side.
So, in the Senate, this National Climate Bank Act was
introduced at $35 billion to leverage a trillion dollars. And
this is bringing private capital in for communities and
projects that were considered too risky to invest in
previously. This is bringing in low-cost capital. The
government can support some of it and seed it. The examples in
the States have shown that for every dollar that the public
spends the private sector comes in with $4.
So New York has, you know, a billion-dollar green bank.
Florida has a much smaller--it is a very small program, but
they have leveraged hundreds of millions of dollars for
projects for communities that are at risk from climate risk,
from climate, you know, mitigation events, from frontline
communities, lower-income communities.
And I think that putting some structure in place in the
Federal sector that leverages all that private-sector capital
out there would be really helpful and would really scale all
these technologies that we need to deploy.
Ms. Scanlon. Okay. Thank you. That is really helpful.
My time is rapidly up, but I did want to thank Ms. Toney
for being here. I regularly hear from members of Moms Clean Air
Force in my district, who have very active chapters, and they
are great. So thank you for your testimony today.
Ms. Toney. Thank you.
Ms. Scanlon. I yield back.
Mr. Hastings. Thank you, Ms. Scanlon.
Ms. Shalala.
Ms. Shalala. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Dr. Burgess.
Let me quickly just make a couple of points. Since I live
on ground zero--I represent Miami--for us, it is life or death.
And since 1950, the sea level in south Florida has risen 8
inches. It is only speeding up now. And by 2030 the sea level
in south Florida is projected to rise 12 inches and by 2100
perhaps 80 inches.
But we have already done some things in south Florida. As
you well know, after Hurricane Andrew, we changed building
codes. Very few buildings go down anymore unless a tree falls
on them, because the building codes after 2000 have been
strengthened across south Florida, and that has made a huge
difference.
I have a number of points, but I have to get to this
caucus, so let me simply say this. I am very interested in
long-term budgeting. I do believe that budgeting for
emergencies ought to be integrated into the overall budget. It
is kind of a quaint idea now, since no one sort of wants to pay
for what we spend. But my longtime friend, the late Alice
Rivlin, had argued the case that we ought to integrate the
budget.
Second, I believe in these public-private partnerships. And
I believe, if we are creative about the infrastructure bill,
Mr. Woodall, if we are really creative about the infrastructure
bill--and in the Speaker's letter, she pointed out that part of
the infrastructure bill ought to be, in addition to roads and
bridges and public transportation, there ought to be a huge
section on the environment and on resilience in particular.
That can be a public-private partnership. That could be
leveraged money to do some of the things we need to do. In
Miami Beach, we have raised most of the roads, we have spent
millions on pumps, and we have built seawalls. Miami Beach
might be able to afford it--though not anymore; I think the
residents are getting tired of these extra taxes--but the
communities around Miami Beach can't necessarily afford the
same thing.
So if we are smart in a big-time infrastructure bill, we
actually could be very creative and really make a long-term
difference. Because in the infrastructure bill, we could do
multiple-year funding, and I think that would make a major
difference.
And I apologize. I have questions for all of you, but I
need to obey my Speaker.
Mr. Hastings. All right. Thank you.
Dr. Burgess.
Dr. Burgess. Fortunately, I am not constrained by any
deference to the Speaker, so we can continue for quite some
time, Mr. Hastings.
Mr. Hastings. You notice I am staying here.
Dr. Burgess. Yes, sir, I do.
Well, I do appreciate all of you bringing what you have
brought before us.
Mr. Johnson, I wonder if--you had provided us this nice
picture of a homeowner in an empty neighborhood, now an empty
neighborhood. And I was just interested, are--and it really
doesn't have anything to do with our discussion here today, but
have you--you mentioned several of the things this homeowner
did during the building phase which allowed him to be standing
when everyone else wasn't.
So, in the arena of best practices, has someone looked at
and perhaps ranked those measures that that homeowner or home
builder took to allow that home to remain standing so that the
next person who is going to build a home next-door would be
able to look at that menu of options, maybe take that to his or
her lender to--you know, what is the most important thing here?
The pilings? Reinforced concrete in the walls? What is the most
important thing or what are the most important things to
preserve a structure? Not that anyone ever wants that to happen
again, but you are building on the coast; things happen. So
have you looked at, sort of, ranking those building activities?
Mr. Johnson. Emergency Management has not, but I will tell
you that there are several universities down in south Florida
that have.
Again, it is a complex answer to your question. The reality
is that the pilings are there because of storm surge, the metal
roof there is because of the wind, the elevation is because of
storm surge. So it is a multifactor kind of solution.
The fact of the matter is that, I believe down in south
Florida, we have the incentive, if you will, because we have
seen things. I think those pictures are very dramatic. And if
you have been in my position as long as I have--Mr. Hastings
and I both remember Hurricane Andrew down in south Florida and
everything in between.
When you realize, when you look at storms, you will see, it
is the building code, quite frankly, that does it. And,
unfortunately, we will see that the building code in south
Florida is dramatically different than it is in north Florida.
They are still building homes----
Dr. Burgess. That is what I was going to ask you about
that.
Mr. Johnson. And I think that is a local issue, that is a
State issue.
Dr. Burgess. Right.
Mr. Johnson. But, again, I would argue that the dollars
spent to build these homes with the reinforced concrete and the
15-degree-slope roofs and those nails and--you name it; there
are all kinds of things that are brought in in the south
Florida code--would carry through to--and, of course, you know,
clearing around your backyard so that when the trees do fall
they don't hit your house, and things like that. There is a
whole ton of different strategies that can be done.
And I think that needs to happen at a local level, but I
think it needs to start, you know, at the Federal level that
can serve as an example. For example, turning the NFIP on its
head and not incentivizing people to build on islands, if you
will, and if they do, they need to elevate, and those kinds of
things.
Dr. Burgess. So I was wondering about that as well. But, I
mean, heaven help us, I am not a banker. I should not be. It
would probably be a violation of so many things if I were put
in charge of people's money. But--oh, wait, I forgot we are in
the Congress--if I were a banker making a loan, this seems
like, okay, this loan is for more than what we would normally
lend for a house in this neighborhood, but because of some of
the things they are doing, this loan could, in fact, be better
protected than a loan on something that is less expensive.
Mr. Johnson. I agree. I scratch my head. In south Florida,
I watched a 30-story condo unit being built. They actually
poured dirt--they moved out into the water so that it had, you
know, a 360-degree view. And it makes me scratch my head as to
what loan or lender would want to incentivize that. And, you
know, it just blows me away that we continue to focus on
building on the coastline. And, granted, the views are
wonderful and whatnot, but I am not sure that that is really
what we need to be doing in this day and age.
Dr. Burgess. Well, I thank you.
And what brought this to mind was having visited down in
those areas just north of where Hurricane Andrew came ashore,
and it seemed like the houses there were different than houses
you see in other places. And, I mean, I don't know that I would
know this for a fact, but I suspected that was because of local
codes that were developed in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew,
that, hey, we are not going through this again, we are not
facing this rebuilding again.
But I thank you for bringing the picture and sharing it
with us. It is certainly very dramatic. And, boy, your heart
goes out to everybody else in that neighborhood. Clearly it was
a bad day.
So, Dr. Phaup, let me ask you--and you kind of covered this
with Mr. Woodall, but I just want to be sure that I am clear on
this. The current process right now in our disaster response,
it is post-disaster. And so these are dollars that are not
considered under Budget Control Act or the Federal budget
process.
Mr. Phaup. A relatively small amount as a result of the
Budget Act of 2011 that Mr. Woodall referred to. But large
portions are treated as emergency spending, yes.
Dr. Burgess. So, like, when we all had to come back here
after Hurricane Katrina and appropriate $100 billion, whatever
it was that day, that is all off-budget. I mean, that is not
added to our Federal budget.
Mr. Phaup. It is outside the budget process. It is
uncontrolled by the other rules of the Budget Act.
Dr. Burgess. So what are you thinking of as far as amending
our rules to improve--if we were going to move into a pre-
disaster funding, I don't disagree with you, but I also have
some concerns about that. Because just as nature abhors a
vacuum, Washington abhors dollars that aren't spent. And I
would worry about someone figuring that out, and before you
know it, the cookie jar is empty when you need it the most.
Mr. Phaup. Well, yes. I have colleagues who give a lot of
emphasis to that. And it could be a serious problem.
So if you were budgeting money, for example, to a disaster
relief fund, and you run some years of good luck and the fund
looks very high, you couldn't stop Congress, necessarily, from
saying, not with any other provision, but we are going to do
something with that money that we hadn't previously authorized.
The nice thing about that is, that is pretty transparent.
That is pretty easy to see as something that, unless there has
been a serious error in estimating the long-term expected
losses, that that is a violation of good practice.
And we have actually had some experience with these funds
where--they are called financing accounts--but where you,
quote, ``set money aside.'' You score it as outlays. It is
included in the deficit, although you don't have to borrow for
it. But it is available for spending. And since you have
already scored the money when you set it aside, it won't cost
anything, actually, to disburse it.
A couple of examples of that are--and people talked about
leveraging guarantees, for example. I assume that is what they
mean. We have had, kind of, forward funding of the cost of
guarantees. When we issue a loan guarantee now, we recognize
the expected loss on that guarantee and outlay it when the loan
is disbursed. And that financing account has accumulated a lot
of money. Similarly for direct loans, we treat them the same
way, have since 1990 and earlier than that.
This is an odd thing. We actually recognize interest on the
debt of the U.S. Government as it accrues rather than when it
is paid. So if you have a quarter in which the following
interest accrues, we outlay it, show it as an outlay, show it
as an increase in the deficit, and it goes into one of these
financing accounts that have a lot of money in them.
They have not been touched. I am not sure why. I mean, it
looks low-hanging fruit, to finance somebody's favorite
project. It has not happened. And I think what you want to do
to guard against something like that is to--is embarrassment,
try to make it so obvious, what is happening, that money
expected to be spent for another purpose that is important and
is accumulated because we have been lucky is not there for
spending on other purposes.
Otherwise, there is no real way to constrain opportunistic
behavior like that.
Dr. Burgess. And it is not just the fact that it is carried
on the books so that the deficit looks lower than it actually
is?
Mr. Phaup. The deficit looks bigger--it looks bigger than
it would on the cash basis because you haven't outlaid the
money yet. In other words, we count it in the deficit--so the
proposal developed in the written statement is to follow the
model that we use in budgeting for direct loans and guarantees.
You recognize what you expect the costs to be up front. You pay
it into one of those accounts. It scores as increasing outlays
and deficits right then.
So people are a little reluctant about appropriating those
moneys because it is going to be scored right away. And if you
are interested in, you know, cost minimization, you now have an
incentive that you didn't have before to look at the drivers of
those costs of loan defaults, for example.
The notion here is that when you make those funds available
and score them as outlays before the disaster occurs, then
people will have some interest in, well, what can we do to get
more bang for the buck for those moneys, because it is counting
right now against whatever caps and limits we have.
Dr. Burgess. Well, I thank you.
Mr. Phaup. That was a longer answer than it required.
Dr. Burgess. But it is important, because we deal with that
on a constant basis. Whether it be healthcare or
infrastructure, we have to deal with that constantly.
Mr. Hastings has been very generous. I will yield back.
Mr. Hastings. Thank you very much, Dr. Burgess. I
appreciate it.
I have three unanimous-consent requests that I will make
for myself.
Ms. Ashley Daniels from North Carolina submitted testimony
for us. And as I indicated earlier, we spent a lot of time
talking with people in North Carolina.
[This document is printed on pages 64-65]
Exelon also submitted testimony to us;
[This document is printed on pages 66-80] and the American
Property Casualty Insurance Association, which is pretty
important to all of us.
[This document is printed on pages 81-92]
So all of those, unless there are objections, are admitted
by unanimous consent.
Mr. Hastings. I am going to ask staff to send to all of you
preparation information that they provided for us on Japan-
related background. I think you all will find it of interest.
They spend and have spent for a considerable period of time on
concerns about resiliency.
And I come to this having, I think in my second term,
visited Japan, and I found it interesting that their Diet,
their parliamentary structure, was very similar to ours, but
they had a related emergency disaster committee that was
constituted of all of the chairs of the respective committees
of jurisdiction and an appointee of the Prime Minister to that
particular group to chair it.
And they were able to move their disaster funds a lot
quicker than we have here, with the tug-of-war that goes on.
And I have seen it from drought not being taken care of for 2
years, blew roofs down in my home territory, because we
couldn't hook it up.
So I am for the integrated budget. And I appreciate my
distinguished friend Mr. Woodall for bringing you here, Dr.
Phaup, for enlightening us. I wish that more Members of
Congress had been here today, particularly on the relevant
committees, so that they could hear how we might very well be
able to do this.
I will end by asking just a couple of questions of all of
you, and I guess it is sort of related, but I will start with
Ms. Hamilton and ask her to talk us through. Nothing is a
silver bullet, but are tax incentives sort of a silver bullet
for us in some respects?
Ms. Hamilton. We know how to do tax incentives, so it makes
them easy. They aren't a silver bullet, but it is something
that is easy to administer and we are used to them.
I think there are a lot of other creative things that we
can do to move forward. Having a vehicle that would allow for
private and public partnerships would be good. Allowing
communities to share information, you know, so we can learn
from each other and be able to take some of these lessons
learned, no matter where you are.
So I don't think there is necessarily one silver bullet,
but this is something that is not going away and that, you
know, preparing in advance is going to be crucial.
Mr. Hastings. Mr. Piotti and Ms. Toney, can you address
this and walk us through how tax incentives help and what their
limitations are in rural and agricultural communities?
Mr. Piotti. Sure. Well, the two areas that I identify, both
agricultural conservation practices and agricultural
conservation easements.
On the easements side right now, many States and the
Federal Government allow easements, the donation of easements,
to be charitable. That often makes a big difference. Some
States have companion programs where there is also a
conservation tax credit. There is nothing like that at the
Federal level, but that could be a very powerful additional
incentive.
On the farming practice side, there are, as I mentioned
before, many good programs in the conservation title of the
farm bill, but it is really not doing what is needed. The
practices that I spoke about--say, the use of no-till and cover
crops and rotations--if you look at the national statistics, it
varies from area to area, but the percentage of farmers who are
using those practices are in the neighborhood of about 6 to 8
percent at most. And it is because farming is such a tough way
to make a living, and if you are taking additional steps, it
has additional funding costs.
Mr. Hastings. Right.
Mr. Piotti. So some form of either incentives or additional
conservation title funding in the farm bill would provide a
huge incentive for farmers to do more up front. And that would
have a significant impact on the amount of runoff and the
resiliency of farmland in its role in flood mitigation.
Mr. Hastings. Uh-huh.
Ms. Toney.
Ms. Toney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
When we usually think of tax incentives, I agree with my
colleagues that it is one solution but not necessarily the
silver bullet, particularly in vulnerable populations and low-
income communities. Because the idea is going to homeowners and
business owners, and oftentimes these are communities where
everyone is not included into that group.
And so it has created and continues to create problems that
we see in areas that are dealing with regentrification. You
have communities of color where people may have owned their
homes for years, and a natural disaster comes in, they are
unable to rebuild or cannot afford the loan or for whatever
reason are not able to stay, and then the area is turned and
culturally shifted and changed, which changes the entire
dynamics of the neighborhood.
We are seeing that not only in New Orleans, but the Florida
Keys is experiencing that right now with so many people who
simply cannot afford to stay. And it causes a number of huge
problems socially for that community. Where are your teachers
going to live? Your firefighters, your police officers, where
do they afford to live?
Mr. Hastings. Right.
Ms. Toney. And so we have to think also for those that are
not necessarily homeowners or business owners in terms of our
tax incentives, but maybe those who rent and/or are living with
other family members.
I will say that there are some opportunities that we should
look at if we are going to talk about tax incentives, in terms
of making them palatable and reasonable so that everyone can
embrace them.
When you are talking about businesses and tax incentives,
it is, have we explored opportunities for job creation tax
incentives for people to work in these spaces? Or if you are
hiring someone, maybe, who needs to learn a new trade or tool,
that is not only sustainable but creates resiliency in the
community. Connecting with educational opportunities.
These are the types of incentives that not only support new
business growth and continued existence for that community, but
they also sort of spur a pride that folks need to have when
they want to stay home and they want to come back home. And
that is what I think local folks ultimately want to do.
So we should use this opportunity with our tax incentives
to just broaden the scope a bit and figure out how we can help
all people to not just take a little money off their taxes but
actually stay in the community that they love.
Mr. Hastings. Let me end our hearing by thanking all of you
and drawing from the information that I said that I would send
to you about Japan.
Among the things that they feel is, if they invest heavily
in resilience, they will be able to provide more export
opportunities from a business standpoint, and, therefore, they
draw in the private sector.
And this particular portion of the information says:
``First, let us present the evidence. The governing Liberal
Democratic Party politicians and disaster-resilience
technocrats in the Cabinet Secretariat's National Resilience
Council, the Association for Resilience Japan, and other new
institutions are building an economic paradigm based on
National Resilience. As part of the resilience project, the NRC
undertook a survey of private-sector firms' current and
projected spending in late 2015. The survey determined that
private-sector spending on resilience was about 11.9
trillion''--in Japan money, which was $105 billion U.S. And,
``That total can be broken down into core market segments.''
And I won't go on, but I want to point out how the three
biggest core and related sectors are electric vehicles,
renewable energy--solar--and power regeneration and
transmission bolstering. And I think all of you have touched
on, in some ways, in that regard.
I would like now for us to be able to close and hear from
our ranking member anything he may wish to say at this time.
Mr. Woodall. Great.
I was talking with Dr. Phaup on the way up about how we so
often come and go as Members and there are no bathroom breaks
or dining breaks for the panel.
I could go about another 2 hours with questions that I have
for you, but now that we have all of your contact information,
I can find you at home and ask you those very same questions.
And so I will do that.
Thank you, Mr. Hastings.
Mr. Hastings. Thank you.
One of the things we do, people think we drink a lot of
water because we are hydrating, but we use it as an excuse to
go to the bathroom.
Before we adjourn, I would like to reflect on this
conversation. It strikes me that, for as much as we know about
the challenges our communities face due to extreme weather,
there is still much we don't know.
As is clear, I and Bill Johnson are from south Florida, and
I know that hurricanes ruin lives, displace people from their
homes, their jobs, and their communities. What I don't think we
fully understand is this: What is the human cost of these
storms, and how does that cost impact the Federal budget? And
you all have helped us address some of those concerns today.
What happens to educational pursuits, healthcare needs, and
related costs? What happens with wages?
Our inaction on resiliency planning and preparation, our
inaction on investing in building stronger communities today,
costs taxpayers and all of us money. It also threatens the
existence of whole communities. And it definitely threatens
lives.
For all the time we talk about broadband, are we working to
ensure that we are investing in communication technology that
will withstand the next disaster in order to keep communities
accessible to first responders and for first responders to stay
connected to each other? I, for one, am just tired of them not
being able to communicate with each other during the course of
disasters, and I think the Federal Government, State, and local
communities should have fixed that problem a long time ago.
This will require more conversation and more action. My
colleague Mr. Woodall and I are prepared to do the hard work to
find these solutions. And I just appreciate you all so much
taking of your precious time to come up here and be with us. It
has been enlightening and informative.
And I do believe that, as a result of this--and I do thank
the staff. There are staff members from other committees that
are visiting with us. The Moms for--what is it?
Ms. Toney. Moms Clean Air Force.
Mr. Hastings [continuing]. Clean Air Force. Okay. It
confused me at first. I was thinking, what do they do? They fly
around out there? But I guess----
Ms. Toney. We are everywhere.
Mr. Hastings. You are everywhere. All right.
But there were so many more questions I wanted to ask. I
come from farm territory and represent the Glades, Mr. Piotti,
along with one other of my colleagues. And when we talk about
algae and red tide and all of those things, they are of vital
concern to us.
But this will amuse Bill and you, Mr. Piotti. I recently
moved to Boynton Beach. And, Bill, I live in Valencia Cove,
right?
Mr. Johnson. We are neighbors.
Mr. Hastings. Yes. And in addition to that, it is in an ag
reserve area that was originally ag reserve area, but we have
these great developers, who I cast no aspersions on, that have
decided that that ag reserve is not as important as some new
homes. So everywhere I look, there is more development.
And my granddaughter and I, when we go to the movies, we
pass by an area, and I tell her, I said, I won't be here with
you 20 years from now, but you see all of this land right here?
This is going to be houses. And you remember when you pass
through here that that is going to be the case.''
And you have made the point that, by diminishing the amount
of agricultural land, we then cause additional problems in that
regard.
All of you have been so enlightening and helpful, and I
thank you all.
And the longer I talk, I don't have to go to this 4 o'clock
meeting.
Thank you all.
[Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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