Bud Shuster: “I thank the chairman for yielding, and I thank the chairman and the Appropriations Committee for bringing forward this…”

“I thank the chairman for yielding, and I thank the chairman and the Appropriations Committee for bringing forward this extremely important legislation, which includes important FEMA reforms which were approved unanimously by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee partially in response to this year's historic hurricane season. The bipartisan, bicameral Disaster Recovery Reform Act addresses the rising costs of disasters in the United States. It reforms Federal disaster programs to ensure our communities are more resilient and better prepared for the next hurricane, flood, earthquake, wildfire, or other disaster. It focuses on predisaster planning and mitigation and creates incentives for communities to build better and smarter to speed recovery when disaster does strike. This will save lives, and it will also save money. Putting our focus on mitigation is good government and is fiscally responsible. For every dollar we spend on mitigation, between $4 and $8 is saved in avoided disaster recovery costs later. This is good policy that will benefit every single congressional district across the country. I want to thank many Members who contributed, but especially to my Democratic colleagues who contributed to this effort: Congressmen Johnson, DeFazio, Huffman, Wilson, Maloney, Ruiz, Sinema, Frankel, and Nadler. And again, many, many others contributed to this important reform legislation.…”