Mike McCaul

We want to thank you, Mr. Starbuck, and thank you for your great service.

Let me say thank you for your efforts on behalf of the State of Texas. I think the response at the highest levels of the State and the volunteer fire departments was really phenomenal, and so thank you for that.

I think it's outdated. The Stafford Act, which governs disaster response, recognizes that the States and local communities and not the Federal Government--I emphasize, not the Federal Government--have the primary responsibility to address…

An emergency should be taken care of instead of having a Washington debate as to how we pay for this.

We've got to cut the Federal Government. The Federal Government is getting in our way.

I'll be the first one to say we need to do a lot more.

What happened in Texas is inexcusable and unacceptable.

FEMA must also change its defined jurisdictions for declarations.

The lack of immediate response from these aircraft assets caused significant delays in fighting the fires in Bastrop County.

What happened in Texas this year is inexcusable and unacceptable.

Texas has been the epicenter of a great natural disaster this year.

The purpose of this hearing is to examine whether bureaucracy prevented a timely response to the recent devastating wildfires experienced in our State.

I first would like to thank my good friend, Congressman Henry Cuellar, for agreeing to be the Ranking Member of this committee's hearing.

I think we should have had more assets pre-positioned to handle the Bastrop and others.

I think we can streamline the process so that reimbursement can take place more in real-time.

Twenty-one thousand fires, and it takes this type of explosion to finally get the attention of the President

Now, this is something the Governor's office, you know, I think on nine separate occasions had requested a Federal disaster declaration.

So--I mean, it says 'aircraft approval.' So they are approved as airworthy.

I think that's--that's a clear lesson learned we ought to be taking from this.

I think we--I just think we could have had more.

While we may disagree on some finer points, I believe that both sides of the aisle agree with the overall final objective.

Thank God we now are beginning to have institutions that have the resources to protect our frontier, and I urge you to continue to support them.

I do that not as a label--you know I introduced this bill. I didn't do it to label them, but rather to give us more authorities to go after them multi-jurisdictional.

We owe them. We have an obligation to an economic and political, democratically to stand with them in a significant way.

These American citizens require our Federal protection, and they are not getting it.