Political Quotes

“In the aftermath of disasters, billions and billions of dollars in claims are often worked out between local governments, State governments, and FEMA. In many cases, because disasters are inherently unpredictable, volatile, and folks are doing what they need to do to help their communities recover and address these urgent needs, in some cases, not every i is dotted, not every t is crossed. These minor issues often become obstacles to these communities being reimbursed and their ability to recover. FEMA has an appeals process, Mr. Chairman. In that appeals process, you basically have FEMA reviewing FEMA. I don't think that that is the appropriate approach. Section 618 of the underlying bill has an arbitration process, but that arbitration process has other Homeland Security officials reviewing the work of Homeland Security. There was a better model that was used after the 2005 disasters whereby an outside board that exists, the Civilian Board of Contract Appeals, which is an independent body, was brought in to help review some of these appeals that local and State governments brought forth to the Corps of Engineers. {time} 0915 It was a better approach. It provided for more thorough evaluation and, again, the independence of having an outside entity review this. Our amendment simply improves upon the existing arbitration process in section 618 of the bill. I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their work on this legislation.…”