During a House Transportation Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Val Hoyle (D-OR) asked Acting FEMA Director David Richardson about his agency's cancellation of some grants.
00:00Chair, thanks, the gentleman. The chair now recognizes Representative Hoyle.
00:06Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Richardson, for joining us today.
00:10I represent the central and south coast of Oregon, a very beautiful place, and my constituents have been pummeled by increasingly severe weather due to climate change.
00:21So whether it's fire or floods or heat domes or ice storm, these extreme weather events that we have not experienced before make it so that my communities and constituents had suffered greatly and they aren't prepared.
00:38So I will echo my colleague, Mr. Garamendi, and my colleague from Pennsylvania in stressing the importance of the BRIC grant program because I agree with you.
00:51We have to make sure our tax dollars are used efficiently and well and not in a wasteful manner, but like Port Orford, this is a coastal rural community in Curry County, Oregon, that just had millions of dollars for water infrastructure upgrades eliminated, even though they had already been allocated.
01:08So they have to stop this project. That's not a bus stop. That's not DEI. This is absolutely critical.
01:15So I would encourage, I'd love to work with you to see how we can move forward because now they're in limbo and there's just no other way for them to go forward without federal assistance.
01:26And I also would like to express my gratitude because last night FEMA approved public assistance of $9 million to address public infrastructure for damage that happens because of floods.
01:43But there's hundreds of families who are still waiting for federal support to put their lives back together.
01:48These people were advised not to get flood insurance because the areas had never flooded before.
01:53So the personal assistance, and even though it's like $800 to $2,000, my community, these communities are almost $20,000 less than the median income.
02:05That $800 to $2,000 make all the difference in the world for them to get their lives back on track.
02:10So we still have, I don't want to play a blame game.
02:17There is no administration that has handled FEMA well.
02:20None.
02:21It is inefficient.
02:22You have people that are traumatized that have to go through bureaucratic processes.
02:27I still have 200 people upriver from me that are out of their homes from the 2020 Labor Day fires.
02:33We are waiting for reimbursement from FEMA from 2020, 2021, and every year since then.
02:40And the process is bureaucratic.
02:42We're so worried about someone not stealing a penny that we make these traumatized people go through too much.
02:48So, again, we'd love to work with you on how we can have this be more efficient and get aid directly to people and those tax dollars working.
02:56So I have two questions.
02:58It's been over two months since Oregon requested a disaster declaration for these floods.
03:05When can families expect a decision on individual assistance?
03:10And secondly, is FEMA still considering changes to the public assistance thresholds that would cut off support disasters like our floods in Oregon?
03:20Because that doesn't look like reform.
03:23It looks like an action that's going to, like, punch people while they're down.
03:27So those are my two questions.
03:30So thank you for the questions.
03:32And flooding, by the way, is, as you know, the most costly disaster that we have.
03:40Regarding the first question, which is, could you just really summarize the two questions?
03:45I'm going to jot them down real quick.
03:47So, like, first question, how do we track and when can we expect a decision on individual assistance?
03:56We got the public assistance.
03:57But this individual assistance might, in the scope of a federal budget, look small, but it's massive, massive to my communities.
04:04So all the declarations have been cleared.
04:09I was briefed on that this morning.
04:10So they're all cleared at this point.
04:12So even for the individual assistance?
04:15Yeah, I believe so.
04:17But I was briefed on it this morning.
04:17So I do believe that they were cleared yesterday.
04:21And then, is FEMA still considering changes to the public assistance threshold that would cut off support for disasters like our floods?
04:31Our floods, our fires, the ice storms.
04:33I mean, these are not things we have suffered from before.
04:36And they're kind of smaller areas.
04:38So we oftentimes just get overlooked.
04:41So as, and I understand the question, as we currently stand, they remain the same.
04:48However, the future of FEMA is going to be determined by the council.
04:52So that would be forthcoming depending on what the council decides to recommend to the president.
05:00Okay, and then finally, I will just say again, please do not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
05:08Do not eliminate and completely take out the BRIC programs because it's really, really important work that's done.
05:17And we need those dollars.
05:19I get that we can disagree or, you know, you can say that you don't think this is the way money should be spent.
05:25But water infrastructure and resilience are critical.
05:28And that is something, in a bipartisan way, we should agree that our federal dollars should be pointed towards.
