Www.fema.gov



Title: DRRA: Transformational Legislation for Emergency Management.Description:On October 5, 2018, President Donald Trump signed the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018 (DRRA) into law as part of the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2018. FEMA worked closely with Congress over the past year as they considered, and ultimately passed, important reforms to federal disaster programs. These reforms acknowledge the shared responsibility of disaster response and recovery, aim to reduce the complexity of FEMA and build the nation’s capacity for the next catastrophic event. On this episode we caught up with Jessi Nalepa, Director of FEMA’s Office of External Affairs for a conversation about what is included in this landmark legislation. (Host: Mark Peterson; Featuring: Jessi Nalepa).TRANSCRIPT: Mark Peterson:On October fifth, 2018, President Donald Trump signed the disaster recovery reform act of 2018, the DRRA into law as part of the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization act of 2018. FEMA worked closely with Congress over the past year as they considered and ultimately passed this important reform to a federal disaster programs. These reforms acknowledge the shared responsibility of disaster, response and recovery. Aim to reduce the complexities of FEMA and build the nation's capacity for the next catastrophic event. Administrative Rock long often speaks about this legislation as being nothing short of a game changer in emergency management and for good reason. On this episode, we caught up with Jesse NALEPA, director of FEMA has office of External Affairs for a conversation about what's included in this landmark legislation. Jesse administrator brock long talks a lot about how this piece of legislation, that disaster recovery reform act of 2018 is a game changing piece of legislation. He talks about the tremendous impact that this legislation will have on emergency management for years to come. Where, where's he coming from? When he talks about that.Jessi Nalepa:Yeah. So thanks so much for having me. I think this is something that's super critical for the agency to highlight. First of all, I think it was the great partnership that we had with Congress by partisan partnership that we had with Congress to actually get the legislation through. Um, I think the economic disruption and the Casa disasters on the ride rise nationwide and I think the committees on the hill and staff that we work with on a regular basis, I'm really came together to say what does FEMA need to prevent a number one the cost, but then also make it easier for disaster survivors to recover. Um, so we worked with Congress for over a year. I'm on this legislation and it was really a consistent a coordination and communication with them on pretty much on a daily basis about certain provisions in the bill. Um, ultimately they pass the bill and important reforms to the federal disaster programs, which will not only touch a state, local tribal, territorial governments and the way that they recover from disasters, um, but also the individual citizens or think it's really critical.Mark Peterson:There are so many pieces of legislation that changed a number of our programs and other federal programs. And we're going to talk about a few of those, but before we do, you touched on this a second ago, but what is that process like of identifying issues that the maybe the agency has or the department is looking at, uh, in the way that we touched disaster survivors and we work with communities. How do you then approach Congress and, and work towards changes?Jessi Nalepa:Yeah. Um, so that's a really good question. Uh, so I think one of the things we often do is the health staff approach us, but they really look for ideas that would have positive programmatic impact on the agency. And what I mean by that is they come to us with ideas and we have the opportunity to weigh in a through comments, um, on legislative text that they provide us or help them actually craft legislative text, uh, to meet their intent, uh, so as to produce something that the agency is kind of helping them create a, oftentimes we also work with the administration to ensure that's in line with the administration's priorities, but by and large at Congress will come to us and asked for our, our comments and we provide them and engage in a meaningful dialogue. And it takes sometimes months and months to get there. Um, and I think in this case it took over a year, so it really is a tug and pull, bouncing a lot of priorities. Um, but at the end of the day, I think both of our intent was to make it easier for disaster survivors. And I think this legislation does just that. But I will add, um, you know, some of the provisions in the bill. I'm one of the administrators stated priorities as reducing the complexity of FEMA. Some of the processes, just by nature of federal government bureaucracy make it a little bit more difficult to access a FEMA programs and to actually execute those. Um, so with the rewards also come, some challenges they agency we'll definitely have to overcome.Mark Peterson:We often forget that members of Congress represent people and often those people were affected by disasters and have gone through the FEMA process and work with federal agencies to try to work towards recovery. So when you're working with Congress, how many of them are sometimes bringing their own ideas or things that they've heard from survivors about ways that the programs need to change? Does that influence the development of the legislation solution?Jessi Nalepa:Absolutely. Uh, yeah, so actually a FEMA, interestingly enough, is probably one of the federal agencies that probably impacts members and their districts the most. I, it's really a way for them to reach out and touch their constituents, uh, through the disaster recovery and response process. Really individuals are impacted probably the greatest and communities. And so helping them recover from those and then reaching out to their congressmen to help them do that is one way that they can actually engage on a very meaningful level. I'm having been a chief of staff or a member of Congress from Texas previously. Um, I realized this in 2016 when our district was impacted by severe flooding and individual assistance and helping people get the assistance they need and recovering from disasters through what we call in the hill, the casework process. You can actually write your, tell the issues you might be having with a federal agency and they can help you navigate those. And so we deal with that a lot here. Um, and FEMA and um, you know, that's another way that we partner with Congress and recovering from disasters.Mark Peterson:So we, so we should say that this, this piece of legislation that affects FEMA is really part of a larger piece of legislation, which is the Federal Aviation Administration. I'm reauthorization act. Right? So how does FEMA work with Congress to identify a vehicle that can help kind of move this, uh, the, these changes forward?Jessi Nalepa:Absolutely. Yeah. Um, so one of the things I think that we see now and the American people can kind of see as the gridlock in Washington and moving bills on a regular basis is difficult, so you have to find a legislation that must move, whether it be for an appropriation deadline or reauthorization deadline for our specific program. Um, and that just happened to be the one that Congress felt as if it was going to move and after the 2017 season that we saw, whether it be hurricanes or California wildfires and given the fact that we were right in the middle of actually the 2018 hurricane season and people were really starting to see the impacts of increasing disasters from that season as well. I think it really spurred the momentum for this to get across the finish line. I think one of the things we've heard from Congress as they felt it's not done, emergency management reform is not done. I was sitting on a panel a couple of weeks ago with some of the colleagues I had been working with on the hill for a couple of years on this. And, um, you know, this is the first step they see in a larger process, but it is a critical step and it starts to change the conversation.Mark Peterson:One of the concerns that I'm sure members of Congress here is regarding the nature of the cost of disasters and how expensive some of these disasters can be, not just for the survivors, but also for the states that are managing the influx of grant money to help the communities recover. And so this piece of legislation actually helps address some of those. So let's get into some of the, each piece, uh, not all of the pieces, but some of the key pieces that change our programs. And the first one is on management costs.Jessi Nalepa:Yeah. So I think one of the things that the administrator talks about over and over again, um, a large portion of the events that we respond to a really are $41,000,000 and under, um, and those are disasters that are very important to every local community. Um, but really the Federal Emergency Management Agency needs to be focused, um, and his opinion on larger disasters and recovering from these catastrophic events as still providing the funding to some of these smaller disasters that are still major disasters, but really not the staffing and expertise that comes with that whenever FEMA declared or the administration declares a major disaster. And so really what this helps do is to help the local government or state government take responsibility for their own recovery. Uh, so offering them more incentives through monetary incentives for them to be able to hire the people that are skilled and trained in disaster response and recovery and also a disaster cost recovery. Um, making sure that they know what tools are available to them, whether it be at the federal, state or local level to help those citizens recover. So, um, this almost doubles and the assistance that we're providing to states monetary assistance that we're providing to the states through management costs, um, and really makes it a lot easier for them to get reimbursed for the time, money and efforts that people they bring in to help recover, um, need.Mark Peterson:So when we talk about recovering from disasters or obviously when we talk about being resilient or creating a more resilient emergency management, um, enterprise throughout the nation in the states and locals, this is really going to allow them to hire more seasoned professionals, keep them on staff, and then be able to work disasters over and over again.Jessi Nalepa:Absolutely. And train the skills and expertise at the state and local level. Um, and really what it does too, I think it builds out them, you know, the whole community approach at the administrator is trying to promote within emergency management. It really takes everyone from the state, local, tribal, territorial level, um, to make an effective response and recovery from disasters. And I think this promotes that even more and by having a states and locals and tribes and territories have more of a stake in their recovery efforts.Mark Peterson:So in terms of this legislation being a game changer, one of the, one of the, um, one of the sections of the bill that seems the most ripe for that kind of a, of a qualifier is the changes to the pre disaster mitigation program. And that is certainly a major change. So talk, talk specifically what this piece of legislation allows for.Jessi Nalepa:Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things that the administrator has said since day one have a, probably even before he came into this agency, uh, was that mitigating before disaster, um, reduces disaster recovery costs for the sheer nature of building back, uh, in a more resilient manner after disaster or mitigating prior really cuts down on funds that are going to need to be a need to recover on the back end. So what this does is it takes six percent of all public assistance dollars that FEMA gives out on an annual basis, um, and it moves that I'm from our appropriations to a separate pot, um, which will be known as the pre disaster mitigation grant program, which will set aside again this six percent, which if you take the billions of dollars that we handed out in 2017, um, from the Harvey Irma, Maria in California, wildfires, disasters alone, um, that would be over a billion dollars.Jessi Nalepa:Right now we're looking, uh, in the millions of dollars range for pre disaster grant money. Um, and it's a competitive grant program so every state can apply if they've had an active disaster in that year. Again, this program will still be competitive, but it widens the pool of available funds. I'm almost quadruple that in some instances so that states can actually be more incentivized to go after that money. One of the things that people were, um, I guess states and locals were having concerns over as they were putting a lot of money into trying to get such a small pool of dollars before for pre disaster mitigation. That to them it wasn't almost worth it. We also have what's known as the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, which comes after a disaster. We make that available to states after they've been impacted,Mark Peterson:but only specific to that state.Jessi Nalepa:Correct. Only specific to that state. And um, so in particular, um, they were, uh, more looking to go after that money or when they would get a major disaster declaration just using that and not seeking the pre disaster mitigation grant money because it was too cumbersome for a small percentage of dollars that they were going to get from that. Just because of the sheer nature of funding that was available through that program before.Mark Peterson:So to put it in perspective, in 2017, the PDM program, the pre disaster mitigation program, uh, is, uh, annually appropriated money. So whatever congress tells us as is available for that grant program, in the case of 2017, it was $90,000,000, which seems like a lot of money, but when you're talking about large, large projects in communities that drastically reduced the cost of future flooding, there's not a whole lot of projects that can be done there, but now that is based on the amount of money that we're providing to all disasters. Like you said, it's a huge amount of money that could be availableJessi Nalepa:absolutely, giving people more opportunities for bigger projects. I think that's one of the things is that, um, you know, this allows for more innovation in that space. What can we really, how can we take mitigation to the next level? Um, and doing it before a disaster strikes. And I think that's the really critical piece of it.Mark Peterson:So I, I think about this in terms of 10 years from now, 20 years from now when this additional money is put into mitigation around the country, I really do see a game changing environment where we are looking at areas of the country that are not necessarily disaster proof but have significantly reduced the, um, the potential disaster impact.Jessi Nalepa:Yeah, absolutely. I think that's probably the biggest way a mitigation is the biggest way that we can prevent future disasters from being as impactful as they have been. A, you're spending more money on the front end, uh, to try and prevent that from happening, but saving more money on the back end. So I think that's where Congress really came and saw the value. I'm the administrator had testified before Congress multiple times and talked about this concept and we had multiple staff level briefings with committees and members trying to, um, encourage them that the investment, uh, you're still going to be investing in disasters, but putting the money up front rather than putting it on the back end really makes a world of difference.Mark Peterson:And I think our mitigation program is even identified that one disaster spent on mitigation or $1 spent on mitigation can save up to five or $6. I'm in disaster recovery money spent, which is, that's an amazing amount of money. Okay. So the other mitigation program, the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, that's the money that you said is set aside from a state specific disaster. I think some people would probably be surprised that after a wildfire, a, unless it's declared as a Stafford Act, disaster hazard mitigation isn't available for those types of an events. So this legislation changes that.Jessi Nalepa:Yup. Um, so another grant, um, that we offer through FEMA is the fire management assistance grant. Um, and typically, um, that does not rise to the level of major disaster. Typically, the purpose of that grant is to ensure that it doesn't rise to the level of a major disaster. Um, and so what we have found, uh, is that after a wildfire, as the landscape changes drastically, I'm almost in an instant. And, uh, one of the things that people deal with after that is severe risk of flooding and other hazards from that wildfire did the change landscape of their community. And so, uh, one of the things that Congress explored previously and the provision had sent sunset and now is as now as codified in this law, but basically what it does is after a wildfire, even if it's just a fire management assistance grant, that theme of provides hazard mitigation, grant funding is available for that state and local community to help prevent a future disasters like that from happening in the futureMark Peterson:When we turn to the individual survivor, one of the programs that FEMA is probably best known for in communities that have gone through, um, a disaster where FEMA has come in to help the recovery process is the individual assistance grant program. So individual assistance. It does exactly what, what the name sounds. It sounds like it provides money in grant form to individuals to help them recover. But really to give them a step forward. It's not to make you whole, but it's in order to get you started on that recovery process. Well, the disaster recovery reform act makes a couple of changes to that individual assistance program.Jessi Nalepa:General observation about those changes. I think one of the biggest things that we've heard from survivors since of time, um, you know, that I've been here with FEMA, is that these programs are very complex for them to navigate. And I think one of the things that Congress found, um, was that their constituents didn't know where to go necessarily. They know that they, they knew that FEMA offered assistance, but they didn't know what other federal programs were there. Um, and so one of the things that Congress looked at was how can we make it simpler for people to understand? Um, and so I think this really has a couple of things, uh, within the bill to transform the way that we deliver our assistance and that other agencies deliver their assistance and it leaves a lot of discretion for the agency as to how we ended up making those changes. But again, the administrators stated priority is reducing the complexity of FEMA. So I think one of the things that he's talked about is finding a way to pull all of the assistance from all different agencies together and make it a more holistic way at almost a one stop shop for survivors to come. Whether or not we're going to be able to realize that within the near term, I'm not sure, but that's one of the ways, um, you know, the congress at least envisioned as a pilot program for us to even tryMark Peterson:And then specifically a one set of disaster survivors, people with disabilities. The law allows for an increased amount of flexibility in the way that we make homes accessible.Jessi Nalepa:Absolutely. Yeah. So, um, one of the things is that if a home, um, who, uh, who had had a, like a wheelchair ramp or another way of assisting a disability before, if that had been damaged during the disaster and that was actually the repairs to that, we're actually subtract it out of the Max grant dollars that the individual could receive to repair that home. Um, and so that would lower the costs for other repairs that needed to be made to the home. And so what this does is that excludes, um, you know, that accessibility need from that deduction from the Max Grant. So essentially that would be almost, um, I wouldn't say free, but that would be another service that's added on, on top of what they're already getting.Mark Peterson:It frees up more money when the cost of making a home accessible becomes more expensive than the cost to just repair the home. It allows more money to help the person move on to a more meaningful recovery.Jessi Nalepa:Absolutely. And um, you know, it, it allows us not only I'm billed back to what it was, but even a little bit better, um, if, if the, if the grant dollars are there.Mark Peterson:Finally, I think the, the biggest piece for, at least for the FEMA employees is the law provides for a major change in conditions of employment and the types of employment that we have. Can you talk a little bit about those changes? AndJessi Nalepa:So FEMA has basically several categories of employees that support a disaster response and recovery at work. You have permanent full time employees, you have temporary employees, and then you also have a reservist which are also temporary. Um, and so, uh, one of the biggest complaints that we had heard, um, is that people that would stay on, um, and some of these temporary positions for two year appointments or four year appointments, and depending on the nature of the job, uh, they couldn't gain status to apply for permanent full time government, uh, positions. And uh, so people, we have been losing people that had, had extensive experience with the agency and within the emergency management, uh, but couldn't them because they couldn't get the benefits that come with the permanent full time paid government positions. Uh, and so what this does is if someone has been working in one of these temporary positions, uh, for a period of three consecutive years, um, they gained status to be able to apply for a full, um, full time paid government position, uh, which really allows the agency to retain talent. One of the things I think that people are most frustrated with in the field and what we hear oftentimes is that the turnover rate of employees, um, whether it be in the field or people liaison in with outside groups here at FEMA headquarters, um, is that there's just no consistency and I think this helps us retain, train, um, and really grow our workforce in a way that we hadn't been able to before.Mark Peterson:So as we look to continuing our efforts towards the strategic plan and readying the nation for catastrophic events and I'm creating a culture of preparedness and reducing the complexities of FEMA, uh, I think this legislation makes a meaningful impact on that.Jessi Nalepa:I do too. I think what it really points to though also as the shared responsibility of disaster response and recovery, it really is the whole community that has to come to the table in order to make it successful. Um, it brings in parts, uh, it obviously the federal government has a big piece and the state that's been impacted or locality that's been impacted tribes' territories, but also the private sector is a huge piece of that individual's preparing for disasters, the huge piece of that. Um, but it really, uh, I think will allow us to continue to improve the way we deliver assistance before, during, and after disasters. ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download