Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for having this very important hearing; and I would like to thank everyone for coming today.

Of concern today is the inability of the Department to adequately manage this authority through the existing fee-based program.

We know we can do better than that for our veterans, we must do better than that.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you very much, Dr. Petzel, for coming here today.

Thank you very much. Really appreciate your testimony today and look forward to working with you as we move forward in this area.

The levees in the Delta are old.

We cannot ignore it. We are going to pay earlier, or we are going to pay late.

Prevent the levee failure. That is, take early action, build the levee properly, and prevent the levee failure.

I want to make sure that not only are we prepared and doing some of the important repair work that needs to be done...

I think it is critical that our emergency response capabilities, with residents in particular, is commensurate with the technology choices that are being made by our citizens for purposes of communications.