During remarks on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) introduced a bill aimed at improving the cooperation between FEMA and local authorities.
00:18Those floods occurred not only a year ago today, but two years ago today.
00:24We had back-to-back floods in 2023 and 2024,
00:29doing about a billion dollars' worth of damage.
00:33By the end of last year, every county in Vermont,
00:37all 14 counties, were hit by flooding.
00:40That billion dollars in damages affected homes,
00:43it affected businesses, it affected farms.
00:46We had 6,000 tons of debris that was removed,
00:4977 state bridges and 63 state roads were closed.
00:54704 miles of rail was closed and 159 miles of rail was closed.
01:00You know, we're far from alone in Vermont
01:04in having suffered enormous damage from wild weather events.
01:09And I see my colleague from Texas, to whom all of us extend our heartfelt sorrow and condolences
01:18at the flooding in Texas and the loss of the lives of those wonderful Texans and those kids.
01:25This type of wild weather event can hit any one of our states at any time of its own choosing.
01:35And all of our states have been affected at one time or another.
01:40Now, I want to talk about FEMA.
01:44Our experience in Vermont with FEMA is that it is absolutely essential and actually quite helpful
01:50in the immediate aftermath of the weather event.
01:53FEMA can pre-position resources.
01:56It has the capacity to surge resources and personnel, including people with real experience,
02:04and can coordinate with the local response, which is always very intense,
02:09from state resources and also from incredible outpouring of help from volunteers.
02:16But acknowledging the importance of FEMA in the immediate aftermath of a wild weather event
02:23in any of our states cannot disregard the fact that we need to reform FEMA.
02:32We need significant reform in FEMA.
02:37In the aftermath of the floods of 2023 and 2024, I visited all of our communities that were affected,
02:44and I followed up after that to talk to our local officials, our local volunteers,
02:51our local regional planning commissions, what worked and what didn't in the long-term response.
02:59And what I heard from officials, regardless of what their political orientation was,
03:06but local officials who had the real sense of urgency about getting the community back on its feet,
03:14was that FEMA was too slow, it was too bureaucratic, it was conflicting in the advice and information that it gave,
03:23and the ability to respond quickly and timely was really inhibited
03:29because of the centralization of decision-making authority in FEMA in Washington
03:36or in one of the regional locations where FEMA has administrative structures.
03:41And for Vermont, that ironically is Puerto Rico, which is not only not close to Vermont,
03:47but doesn't have anything close to the weather of Vermont.
03:51So the aftermath of repairing, getting the community back on its feet, that's where FEMA has failed us.
04:01And it's because of the centralization, in my view, and actually less important in my view,
04:09in the view of the local officials who have ongoing responsibility to get the community back on its feet.
04:18They just couldn't get answers.
04:20And let me just give some examples.
04:24When there is a culvert out, there is a road out, there's a bridge down,
04:30the people whose bridge is affected, the people who are threatened if we have a culvert replaced that's too small
04:39for what now we know will be the required carrying capacity of a culvert,
04:44the best people to make that are right there in that community.
04:47They have a sense of urgency.
04:50They have a commitment to the well-being of the people they represent in that community.
04:56They have the pressure of local community people watching to see if they're making progress on that recovery.
05:03But what has happened with FEMA where everything is centralized is you don't get an answer.
05:09Can we replace an 18-inch culvert with a 36-inch culvert?
05:13Can we do the bridge over Heartland Road or can we make a change because the bridge over Route 5 is more important to get fixed?
05:22And that's the priority.
05:24One of the problems that our communities had is that the so-called program managers,
05:30those are the people assigned by FEMA to serve communities as the bridge between the local community and FEMA,
05:37that they are changed constantly.
05:40So we've had in some of our small towns, and I'm talking towns with a population of like 300,
05:46they have one program manager after another and over the course of a year and a half might have seven or eight program managers.
05:55And when that program manager is doing good work but asking questions and they're getting answers from the town clerk,
06:04a new program manager comes in and it's as though nothing ever happened and they have to start all over again.
06:10So it creates an enormous amount of frustration.
06:13We've got a situation with the town of Standard where the town clerk, this is the town of 300,
06:20the town had to make a decision about repaving a road.
06:24It's a gravel surface.
06:26And in order to get repaid, more than a year after the road had been repaired,
06:33with the town borrowing money it really couldn't afford for a project that clearly was ultimately going to be covered by FEMA,
06:40the town clerk was getting questions about what is the size of the gravel stones in that road bed 12 inches down.
06:49That makes no sense.
06:51And what happens, of course, is it creates an immense amount of frustration.
06:55You know, a community that goes through a major weather event, in the shock of it, in the immediate aftermath,
07:01everyone rushes in to help.
07:04But then if it's your farm, if it's your business, if it's your home,
07:09you have to live with the effects of a slow-moving, non-responsive, centralized bureaucracy
07:17rather than get on with life and get an answer, yes or no, can you do this or not.
07:22So as a result of my discussions with the communities that have been affected in Vermont,
07:29today I have introduced a bill that's called the Disaster Assistance Improvement and Decentralization Aid Act.
07:37And quite simply, what this bill does is recognize that if you're going to get as quick a recovery as possible,
07:44as efficient a recovery as possible, as cost-effective recovery as possible,
07:52you actually have to delegate responsibility and authority to the local community that has to live with the consequences of the damage that has been done.
08:05There's got to be a partnership. There's got to be accountability.
08:09But where FEMA's role is going to be better in this is on oversight,
08:13to make sure that there is the proper use of taxpayer, FEMA-authorized money.
08:18But it's not going to micromanage local folks to death in the name of oversight.
08:25It's going to empower the local folks to make those decisions that have to be made right now
08:31about getting that community back on its feet.
08:35Every single one of us is horrified when the people we represent suffer the result of a wild and catastrophic weather event.
08:48The loss of life is horrifying.
08:52The destruction to the well-being of the community is inconsolable.
08:58But we can help by making that long-term recovery process work better.
09:06And the only way it's really going to work better is by having much more authority in local hands.
09:14The decisions that they can make about the culvert, about the bridge, about the grade of gravel that's going to the repairs.
09:23So my hope, Madam President, is that we can come together as a Congress to fix FEMA so that its capacity to help our communities
09:36when they have been hurt so hard through no fault of their own,
09:40that they'll be able to get the capacity to make decisions, act, and get their community back on its feet.
09:48Now, I do oppose this discussion that we're hearing to some extent from President Trump and Secretary Noem about abolishing FEMA.
09:57You know, we can abolish FEMA when we can get an executive order abolishing and banning wild weather events.
10:07But that day is not going to come.
10:09But another storm in one of our communities inevitably will come.
10:16And what I want us to do, for your state and mine, is to have a FEMA that can be on hand, prepositioned,
10:25and help in the immediate aftermath, and then be a partner, but where we put the decision-making
10:33and the capacity to act and the flexibility that's necessary for the wise recovery of our communities
10:41in the hands of our local officials.
10:45I think this will make a much better recovery process for the folks all of us represent in the great United States of America.
