Interview transcript:  Daniel Bresette: We will be hosting an online briefing called a Rapid Readout on Thursday afternoon. It’s called the future of FEMA. We’re going to have an expert named Joel Scata from the Natural Resources Defense Council join us for about 30 minutes or so to go over the basics of a FEMA reform effort that’s taking shape in Congress, talking a little bit about where the agency is. It’s been in the headlines quite a bit this year so far and do that in a way that is oriented toward helping policymakers and congressional staff in particular catch up on developments of late and do so in a pretty quick way. Jared Serbu: What are some of those biggest questions that you see cropping up from lawmakers and their staffs in this specific FEMA and emergency management space? Daniel Bresette: So I think there’s a general understanding and recognition on Capitol Hill on a bipartisan basis that disasters strike where disasters strike. Disasters don’t respect political borders and whether it’s flooding or hurricanes or wildfires or other types of disasters, the capacity that communities and states need to prepare for and recover from those disasters is simply too great without a strong federal role, a federal agency. FEMA’s been in the news, like I said, quite a lot this year. Earlier this year, there were some unfortunate news cycles about potentially eliminating the agency. And I think sort of a general worry and concern about the future of the agency combined with a genuine need to improve the agency, the agency has been approved over time over the years, many times, typically after something has happened and people have realized better ways of doing things and how to make the agency more efficient and more functional and more responsive to the needs of communities and people who are trying to recover. I think it’s probably a combination of those things. And on a bipartisan basis, there’s some legislation coming together, primarily in the House of Representatives, but I think there’s general bipartisan interest in both chambers. Jared Serbu: Yeah, and considering that there does seem to be a pretty solid consensus on Capitol Hill that there is a federal role for sure in disaster response in the future that maybe takes the possibility of FEMA or something like it being eliminated completely off the table. But if we operate within those constraints that there’s going to be a FEMA, what are the biggest specific questions about the agency’s future that are going to need to answered, kind of short and medium term? Daniel Bresette: Sure. And I think one of the big issues is sort of ongoing funding and staffing capacity to ensure that the agency is prepared. The agency does more than just the recovery. They also are engaged on the preparedness side of things as well, and ensuring that those critical programs are around and are available when people need them. The best time to prepare for a disaster is before it strikes and unfortunately, that’s difficult to do for a lot of states and communities with limited capacity and whether it’s financial capacity, technical capacity, or otherwise. In the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, we’ve been watching some developments take shape. There’s a bill called the Fixing Emergency Management for Americans Act. That is a bipartisan bill championed by the chairman of the committee, Rep. Sam Braves, of Missouri, and the ranking member, Rep. Rick Larson, of Washington. That bill would do a number of different things. I think the top-level reform that bill would put into place is it would return FEMA to its status of an independent agency, directly reports to the president, has its own inspector general and can operate on an independent basis. I think that’s the one, sort of the big thing, the top line of what the bill would do. But it would do other things and these are things that have, there have been various efforts to do this over the years, streamlining, processing, eliminating red tape, to ensure both on the preparedness side and on the recovery side that people are able to put dollars to use quickly and don’t get too buried in paperwork. And it would also take some important steps to prevent making the disaster aid, disaster recovery, those processes political, which is something that we wouldn’t want to see federal response efforts become political. I think there’s a lot of concern right now, especially that could be something that is used or that is something could negatively affect communities, again, in the aftermath when really everyone should be focusing on helping people get back to their lives and back to businesses and try to get back normal and doing that in a way where those benefits and capacities and resources can be distributed equitably in a timely way. Jared Serbu: You mentioned before that some of the previous FEMA reform or emergency management reform efforts have been in the aftermath of a serious shortcoming that we’ve seen from the agency. Unless I’m not thinking of something, we don’t really have anything in the recent past that’s like a Katrina-style or scale failure. So given that, is there a consensus on the Hill? What needs to be changed within FEMA or what the general dissatisfaction with the current state of FEMA is? I mean, is it largely just a matter of go faster? Daniel Bresette: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s largely an effort to streamline the agency to ensure that people are getting those resources as quickly as possible in a timely way after disaster strikes and ensure that there are resources available before disaster strikes. I think you’re right, Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, September 11th, in the aftermath of those disasters those disasters, that’s when a lot of the previous efforts to reform FEMA have taken place. But I think even after those and even after the most recent significant reform, the Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018, I still think there’s this idea that the agency can go faster, can be more responsive to help people recover on an even more timely basis to get back to their normal lives. I’m not sure that process can happen fast enough. And I’m pleased that there seems to be some interest in keeping at that, doing their best to make the agency as responsive as possible. But yeah, I think it’s probably, like you said, it’s not because we’re in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina once again, but given potential uncertainty for the future of the agency, I’m pleased that on a bipartisan basis, members of Congress are coming together to take a close look at the agency. Talk to stakeholders. Understand how the agency could be more responsive and then hopefully do something about it. Jared Serbu: I should ask before we let you go here, does EESI take any particular views on the direction that reform should take here or do you see yourself largely playing more of a convening role here for this conversation? Daniel Bresette: Yeah, we primarily see ourselves as educators, advocating for specific policies is not a big part of what we do here at EESI. We’re known on Capitol Hill for providing nonpartisan science-based educational resources on a wide variety of environmental clean energy and climate change topics. FEMA is an important agency. I think in speaking, a lot of times people think first and foremost about eliminating greenhouse gas emissions and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but climate resilience and climate adaptation are very, very important. FEMA is one of the most important agencies when it comes to that. So it’s one that we pay attention to very closely. And when there’s this much activity on Capitol Hill, we spend even more attention and pay that even more attention than we might have. But our goal is to bring an expert to the Hill, in this case, virtually to help people understand where things are, what direction they could go. But we won’t be doing it and we won’t really have an advocacy position that we’re working for other than a recognition that this is a really important agency, even though it could be improved, a really important agency that helps people when they need it most.The post Trump administration and Congress weigh changes to FEMA first appeared on Federal News Network.