Proposed legislation to overhaul the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which goes by the same acronym, the Fixing Emergency Management for Americans Act (FEMA Act) won the support of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), which said the bill would reform and modernize the agency.
“Reforming FEMA into a stronger, more responsive agency will help strengthen rural resilience, protect taxpayer dollars and ensure essential services are restored as quickly as possible after a disaster,” NRECA CEO Jim Matheson said in a press release.
Matheson said the agency is a critical partner for electric utilities and cooperatives when disasters strike. The bill would, he said, create a smarter agency that helps communities bounce back from disasters more effectively.
The bill, H.R. 4669, is being considered by the House Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management. Lawmakers are circulating the bill hoping to gather feedback from Congress, state and local emergency managers and others.
Specifically, the proposed bill would make changes to the disaster delivery model and Stafford Act, including changes to existing FEMA Individual Assistance, Public Assistance and Hazard Mitigation programs. It would also remove FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security and establish it as a presidential Cabinet level agency, granting it independence from the DHS, but bringing it under the aegis of the White House in some ways.
The bill was introduced in March by House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO), Ranking Member Rick Larsen (D-WA), Congressman Daniel Webster (R-FL) and Congressman Greg Stanton (D-AZ).
Graves and Larsen said in a joint announcement on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure’s website that the bill would reward effective state and local preparedness, protect taxpayers, cut red tape and ensure that relief efforts are fast, fair and free from political bias.
By replacing the bureaucratic rebuilding process with faster, project-based grants, states will be able to set the pace of recovery, reduce their dependence on consultants, and prioritize critical projects – without having to take out loans or wait years for reimbursement, according to the release from the committee.
“We have clearly seen that FEMA is not working as it should for Americans who’ve been impacted by disasters. Congress has passed FEMA reforms over the years, but it simply hasn’t been enough,” Graves said. “By releasing this discussion draft legislation, we hope to engage our colleagues and stakeholders on comprehensive FEMA reform. This draft bill includes substantive changes that will transform FEMA and our emergency programs to be much more state and locally driven – not micro-managed into ineffectiveness by the federal government.”
The bill would establish a Recovery Task Force charged with closing out more than 1,000 lingering disaster declarations dating back to Hurricane Katrina and direct FEMA to improve coordination across all federal agencies involved in disaster recovery, according to the release from the committee.
It would also mandate a full Government Accountability Office (GAO) review of all FEMA regulations and policies to eliminate outdated, conflicting and unnecessary rules.
Matheson called the bill the result of much lobbying from cooperatives, adding that it would create a timeline for the reimbursement of emergency restoration work, plus an expedited process for approving outage restoration work to repair, rebuild, replace or restore critical facilities and infrastructure damaged by disasters.
“It will also restructure FEMA’s hazard mitigation programs to make additional resources accessible to co-ops to help improve reliability in preparation for future disasters,” according to NRECA.
About the Author
Jeff Postelwait
Managing Editor
Jeff Postelwait is a writer and editor with a background in newspapers and online editing who has been writing about the electric utility industry since 2008. Jeff is senior editor for T&D World magazine and sits on the advisory board of the T&D World Conference and Exhibition. Utility Products, Power Engineering, Powergrid International and Electric Light & Power are some of the other publications in which Jeff's work has been featured. Jeff received his degree in journalism news editing from Oklahoma State University and currently operates out of Oregon.