Federal Disaster Assistance Coordination Act

Floor Speech

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Mrs. GONZALEZ-COLON. Mr. Speaker, I would say, first of all, that I thank Chairman Graves for his leadership and for acting so swiftly to bring this bill to the floor of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I proudly rise in support of my bill, H.R. 255. I thank Representatives Scott Peters of California, Stacey Plaskett of the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Neal Dunn of Florida for cosponsoring this legislation.

H.R. 255 would establish a process to identify ways to streamline and consolidate the collection of certain disaster information to start the recovery process for individuals and families that were devastated by any natural disaster.

Mr. Speaker, I hear about these issues with delays and confusion related to requirements and processing of disaster assistance on a regular basis. I meet with mayors of the island--and this is just in the case of Puerto Rico--but I know we do have the same process and the same situation across the Nation. This is a significant source of frustration for my mayors and my constituents as well as people all over the country.

While FEMA is the lead Federal agency on disasters, many others are also often involved in disaster response and recovery, like, for example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Small Business Administration, just to name a few.

In the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, and the seismic activity in Puerto Rico in 2020, we discovered that Federal agency after Federal agency would require the same information in their preliminary assessments, which meant tens of thousands of site and damage assessments.

We see some of this repeating itself in the aftermath of last year's Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico and Hurricane Ian in Florida and with other disasters across the Nation.

This is not just a bill for the islands or the territories. This is a bill for the rest of the Nation on how to manage and get expedited help and response from Federal agencies.

Currently, there is no process to share these assessments among Federal agencies, which ultimately causes significant delays for immediate relief and prolongs recovery. This is compounded by other administrative issues like frequent staff changes and constituents and mayors having to work with multiple personnel to handle a single application or request.

In 2020, FEMA finally decided to begin consolidating assessments for Puerto Rico to speed up the delivery process across multiple Federal agencies. Many of these assessments are small, often one part of a larger project, which has continuously slowed down the recovery process.

H.R. 255 would establish a Federal working group led by FEMA, in collaboration with the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, to identify ways to reduce duplication and modernize the Federal management assessment process to make it truly agile and efficient. We need to ensure assistance is provided while safeguarding taxpayer funds. I think with this bill we can do both.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is critical that these agencies are working together to minimize overlaps in their assessments and consider the use of the newest technologies to streamline processes. Very often, we, in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, have these same discussions about what happened in Louisiana, what happened in Florida, what happened on the East Coast, what happened on the West Coast every time we have a natural disaster. It always is the same problem.

I trust this bill will expedite disaster recovery across the Nation. As we have learned in Puerto Rico, it is not if the next disaster will occur, it is when it is going to happen and how we are going to face it.

Every 1st of June, another hurricane season begins for the territories and the eastern coast. Since the last time this language passed the House in the 117th Congress, we had another direct hit with Hurricane Fiona.

I am pleased we are considering this bill so early in this 118th Congress, and that is the reason I thanked our chairman for his marvelous job bringing this bill to the floor.

I can, therefore, work quickly to make this proposal the law of the land as part of our efforts to better prepare for disaster response.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support this bipartisan legislation.

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