In The News

 By Andres Picon

A House Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee will question a Federal Emergency Management Agency official this week on the agency’s disaster mitigation spending.

The hearing of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management — led by Chair Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and ranking member Dina Titus (D-Nev.) — will be the panel’s second hearing focused on FEMA programs in as many months.

Victoria Salinas, FEMA's associate administrator for resilience, will be the sole witness Wednesday.

A fierce advocate of slashing government spending and one of Congress’ most outspoken critics of the Biden administration’s climate agenda, Perry is likely to use the hearing to scrutinize FEMA’s administration of billions of dollars in mitigation and resilience grants.

“We have an increasing reliance on the federal government, and then we add that FEMA is also being tasked to manage non-traditional disasters, like pandemics, and help with issues completely unrelated to its mission,” Perry said at last month's FEMA hearing, which was focused on "disaster readiness” and the “propriety of the expanded use of FEMA’s resources.”

“Where is the accountability in all of this?” he added then. “Why aren’t states doing what they need to do to budget for these costs?”

The fiscal 2024 Homeland Security spending bill that President Joe Biden signed into law last month provides FEMA with $3.5 billion to support grants and training programs intended to help communities make their buildings and infrastructure more resilient against a variety of threats, from hurricanes and wildfires to terrorist attacks.

FEMA requires state, tribal and local governments to submit hazard mitigation plans when applying for non-emergency aid.

The fiscal 2024 funding for resilience grants is on top of the $20.3 billion that Congress appropriated for FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, which supports all of the agency’s recovery work.

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