The Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Building, and Emergency Management of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee held a hearing on federal disaster relief efforts on October 22. The hearing featured two panels of witnesses with experience in federal, state, and local disaster recovery.
The first panel was composed of federal officials, including Jeffrey Byard, associate administrator for response and recovery at FEMA; Dennis Alvord, deputy assistant secretary for economic development and chief operating officer for the Economic Development Administration; and Chris P. Currie, director of the Homeland Security and Justice Government Accountability Office. Subcommittee members asked about a wide range of disaster recovery topics. Mr. Byard described FEMA’s efforts to implement the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program. He was asked several questions on gaps in benefit eligibility for midwestern flooding victims and reimbursements for local government-funded debris removal. Mr. Alvord described ways that newly created Opportunity Zones could leverage private investments for disaster recovery but admitted the program has yet to be effective in rural areas. Mr. Currie was asked about the efficiency of and delays in FEMA funding, and he answered that the number of programs and array of regulations have often prevented grantees from quickly accessing disaster recovery resources.
The Subcommittee had invited HUD representatives to the meeting, but the agency instead sent a written statement and provided a separate briefing on the Community Development Block Grant–Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program. The subcommittee, which does not oversee HUD, criticized the agency for its failure to appear as well as HUD’s delays in getting much needed CDBG-DR funds to disaster-affected areas. Representative Garret Graves (R-LA) said that using HUD to run a disaster-relief program was the “stupidest thing [he] had ever seen” and floated the idea that instead of formally authorizing the CDBG-DR program, which would shorten the time it takes to release the funds, the program should instead be run by FEMA. Mr. Byard said FEMA would prefer to focus on the tasks already under its purview.
The NLIHC-led Disaster Housing Recovery Coalition (DHRC) – consisting of over 850 national, state, and local members working in the disaster housing recovery field – is working to support passage of the “Reforming Disaster Recovery Act of 2019,” which would formally authorize the CDBG-DR program under HUD and ensure its funding reaches disaster survivors most in need. The legislation will likely go to the House floor in November.
The second panel featured state and local emergency officials and advocates including Michael Sprayberry, director of the North Carolina Emergency Management Agency; Fernando Gil-Ensenat, secretary of the Puerto Rico Department of Housing; Rhonda Wiley, emergency management and floodplain manager for Atchison County, MO; and Reese C. May, chief strategy and innovation officer at the nonprofit organization SBP. Witnesses were asked to focus on different ways federal disaster recovery programs could be improved. The witnesses all stated that a common disaster assistance application and the formal authorization of the CDBG-DR program would improve how quickly and efficiently disaster funding is distributed. The also discussed how public-private partnerships and innovative technologies could be used to improve federal disaster recovery.
Listen to the hearing and view opening statements at: https://bit.ly/32MdFjh
Read a fact sheet about the Reforming Disaster Recovery Act at: http://ow.ly/BrmE50wT8zg