Washington, DC – A bill offered by Congressman Garret Graves (R-South Louisiana) to directly address the frustrations disaster victims experience regarding the status of federal assistance administered through FEMA earned approval today by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, moving it one step closer to passage in the House of Representatives. Graves worked with local flood victims and parish and state officials to address challenges through legislation, and his bill was one of three that passed through the committee this morning – all of which are designed to improve FEMA’s performance.
Graves’ H.R. 1679, the FEMA Accountability, Modernization and Transparency Act of 2017 would require the agency to modernize its grant management system and provide secure online access to applicants. It would ensure FEMA’s improvement efforts include robust applicant accessibility and transparency measures.
The committee further approved a Graves amendment to another FEMA bill, H.R. 1665, which is also making its way to the House floor. His amendment would ensure that FEMA considers the cumulative regional impact of recent disasters when making a recommendation to the president for a current major declaration and would address situations faced by states when back-to-back disasters occur. Louisiana recently experienced this challenge when a string of tornadoes tore through multiple communities, including some that were impacted by the historic flood in 2016.
“In states like Louisiana where in the last 11 years we’ve endured Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike and Isaac, record high water on the Mississippi River and other natural disasters – a lot can happen in a short amount of time. Sometimes FEMA needs to look at these disasters cumulatively,” said Graves.
The committee additionally approved H.R. 1678, which is co-sponsored by Graves and puts a 3-year limit on FEMA’s ability to approach disaster victims with attempts to recover disaster assistance payments.