Eightmile Wild and Scenic River Act

Mr. President, I rise to introduce S. 3721, the Post- Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006. It contains a vital set of reforms and innovations for our emergency-management systems that are designed to save lives and ease suffering when disaster strikes. The crafting of this bill has benefited from the insights of my principal cosponsor, Senator Lieberman, and from the support of our other cosponsor, Senator Salazar.

The Senate has already acted on one critical measure to apply the bitter lessons of Hurricane Katrina. The 87 to 11 vote on July 11, adding creation of the U.S. Emergency Management Authority to the Homeland Security appropriations bill, adopted a major element of today's bill. That was a great step forward.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee conducted an 8-month investigation with 23 hearings, more than 325 formal interviews, and a review of more than 838,000 pages of documents to ascertain why the response to Hurricane Katrina was so inadequate at all levels of government. The investigation revealed serious failures of leadership. It also revealed an urgent need for broad reforms ranging from communication-technology standards to the structure and missions of entire Federal agencies.

Some of the 88 recommendations that flowed from our investigation can be adopted by administrative action. The Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act comprises important steps that only Congress can take. I will outline the five key components of our bill.

First, we strengthen FEMA and rename it as the United State Emergency Management Authority, or US-EMA, to signify a fresh start. We elevate US-EMA within DHS, restore its preparedness authority, and protect it from departmental reorganizations that could erode its budget and assets. These measures give the agency mission and asset protections like those of its DHS siblings, the Coast Guard and the Secret Service.

These statutory protections are important. Securing the integrity of FEMA preserves the cooperative benefits of its operating within easy reach of other DHS agencies. It also avoids the duplication, cost, and confusion for State and local officials that would come from carving FEMA out as a weak, stand-alone agency for natural disasters. Keeping FEMA where it was placed by the Homeland Security Act of 2002 avoids the need for DHS to recreate a similar terror-response capability.

Improving contact and coordination among Federal, State, and local agencies is essential. For that reason, our bill provides for regionally based, multi-agency Federal strike teams that will be ready to act and deploy in a region they will already know and understand before a disaster occurs.

The bill also provides continued funding for the interstate Emergency Management Assistance Compact that proved so valuable in marshaling aid for the gulf coast last year. It commits the US-EMA to work with States and localities to develop a standardized credentialing system that will help responders and selected private-sector personnel move quickly into disaster areas anywhere in the country, and it requires the US-EMA to offer technical assistance to State and local governments.

To help remedy the communications gaps revealed by Hurricane Katrina, we also improve the agency's organizational and technical communications systems. Our bill designates the Administrator of the US-EMA as the principal advisor to the President on emergency- management issues. Meanwhile, national and regional advisory councils will ensure that the US-EMA has open channels of communication with State and local officials, emergency responders, key private-sector and nongovernmental entities, and with representatives of people with disabilities.

On the equally important technical side, our bill consolidates several communications programs within a new Office of Emergency Communications within US-EMA. This office will devise a national emergency-communications strategy, administer grants for interoperable communications, and regularly assess the operability and interoperability of the communication systems that are essential for disaster response and that failed so widely during the Katrina catastrophe.

This US-EMA portion of the bill has received a great deal of attention. But it is only one part of this package of essential reforms.

The second part of our bill permits an enhanced Federal role in emergency management when major disasters require it. The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, better known as the Stafford Act, authorizes a variety of Federal assistance measures to State and local governments when the President has declared a disaster.

Congress has amended the Stafford Act over time to make it more effective. Our bill continues that process of improvement by applying lessons learned from Katrina.

At the highest level, it directs the Federal Government to develop and maintain a national disaster-recovery strategy in coordination with the State and local governments which will lead each recovery. This fills a remarkable planning void in our current system, which focuses on response. When disaster overwhelms state and local governments and devastates large areas, recovery can be a long process requiring extended Federal assistance.

We increase the potential for more effective Federal aid in several ways. For example, the legislation enhances Federal agencies' ability to respond when the President uses his authority to direct their assistance in major-disaster response and recovery.

The bill requires a national-disaster housing strategy and authorizes making semipermanent housing units a part of Stafford Act assistance. In many cases, the modular ``Katrina cottages,'' for example, would be less costly, safer, more livable, more easily sited, and more durable than the notorious trailers FEMA purchased.

A new title VII for the Stafford Act gives the President discretion to offer increased Federal assistance when disaster overwhelms state and local governments. This discretionary--but limited--authority for catastrophes includes raising the cap on individual assistance, assisting victims with rent or mortgage costs, extending disaster- unemployment benefits, increasing community loans, and raising the reimbursement to communities for the cost of food, clothes, and other essential goods they distribute to victims.

Among other Stafford Act revisions, our bill clarifies that Federal mitigation efforts can extend to man-made hazards like the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet that funneled deadly storm-surge waters toward New Orleans. It establishes a missing-child location system and a database to help reunite families, a major problem in the aftermath of Katrina. And it requires that planning and training exercises, as well as evacuation and sheltering plans, give consideration to people with disabilities or special needs, or who are not fluent in English, or who have pets.

These improvements to the Stafford Act would be a major accomplishment by themselves. But the demonstrated need for reforms goes deeper still.

The third key element of our bill will provide more and better- trained emergency professionals. The US-EMA will establish a contingency cadre to meet surge workforce needs; implement a human- capital strategy to improve recruitment, development, and retention; and make quarterly reports to Congress on staffing levels. These actions should reduce the chronic workforce shortfalls--at times as great as 25 percent--that have hobbled FEMA in the past.

Looking to staffing quality across the full spectrum, our bill creates a National Homeland Security Academy. The academy will offer both classroom and distance-learning instruction and training to DHS, state, and local homeland-security professionals.

The fourth element in our reform bill will correct the confusion and lack of training on incident management and unified-command operations that frustrated a fully effective response to Katrina. Our bill mandates a comprehensive review of the National Response Plan, and requires that the DHS Secretary employ the NRP and the National Incident Management System to guide Federal actions in a natural or manmade disaster.

The Secretary is also directed to work with the US-EMA Administrator and with the National Advisory Committee to implement a national training-and-exercise program to ensure that vital knowledge and skills are in place and are kept sharp.

The fifth key aspect of our bill targets the waste, fraud, and abuse that outraged both our compassion for disaster victims and our sense of stewardship for taxpayer dollars. Based on the investigations by our committee, the GAO, and the DHS inspector general, I believe far more than a billion dollars has been lost to waste, fraud, and abuse in the aftermath of Katrina. The purchase of unusable mobile homes, long- distance moving and storage of unneeded ice, and abuse of debit cards indicate that DHS has lacked even rudimentary controls to safeguard tax dollars.

Our bill directs the Department to identify emergency-response requirements that can be contracted in advance with pre-screened vendors, so that vital commodities and services can be secured and delivered promptly. This simple change could curtail the waste of time and money as officials scramble to make ad-hoc purchase and distribution arrangements, often paying excessive prices. We also provide for a contingency corps of Federal contracting officers who can work in the field for an extended period following a disaster, so that response and recovery spending is better directed and controlled than with Katrina.

Our bill also faces the unfortunate reality that thieves and con artists will try to abuse even programs for disaster victims. Our bill imposes civil and criminal penalties for misrepresentation, requires fraud-awareness training for contracting officers and for the relief workforce, mandates systems to verify identities and addresses, and requires issuing explicit directions on legitimate uses of purchase cards.

Our bill is no single-issue, silver-bullet exercise but a careful and comprehensive program of improvement and innovation. It takes on each of the vital areas that our Hurricane Katrina investigation determined require action by Congress: reconstituting FEMA, updating and expanding the Stafford Act, improving emergency staffing, enhancing planning and preparedness, and reducing waste, fraud, and abuse.

Floods, earthquakes, storms, fires, and other natural disasters are abiding threats that exempt no one living on this planet. And the threat of manmade disasters has, perhaps permanently, forced itself into our plans for sustaining this great Nation.

Hurricane Katrina showed us in tragic terms that our mechanisms for disaster mitigation, preparation, response, and recovery urgently need many improvements. If we leave untouched the gaps, the confusions, and the missteps revealed during Katrina, we will see more unnecessary loss of life and prolonged misery. We do not know when the next great disaster will strike, or what form it will take. But we know it will come. We know what needs to be done. The Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act gives us the tools to do it.

Mr. President, I rise today to offer my support for and cosponsorship of this comprehensive piece of legislation that Chairman Collins and I are proposing based on our investigation into the failed preparations and response to Hurricane Katrina.

About 1 month ago, we introduced a bill to transform FEMA into the U.S. Emergency Management Authority to guarantee that our national emergency response system can handle a catastrophe--whether it is a hurricane the size and scope of Katrina or a terrorist attack. U.S. EMA would have special, protected status--much like the Coast Guard has within the Department of Homeland Security. The Senate overwhelmingly adopted that legislation by a vote of 87 to 11 as part of the Department of Homeland Security fiscal year 2007 Appropriations Act.

Today, we reintroduce that legislation backed up by additional reforms to improve emergency communications, planning, training, and to make necessary changes to the Stafford Act, which governs relief and emergency assistance to victims of disasters.

The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, at the request of the Senate leadership, spent 7 months culling through hundreds of thousands of documents, interviewing hundreds of witnesses, and holding scores of hearings into the botched Government response to that catastrophic hurricane.

We found that at all levels, our Government was ill-equipped to deal with the massive human suffering all along the gulf coast that followed the storm's landfall, suffering that shocked and angered the American people who expect more from their government when fellow Americans are in need. These failings were the result of many things--negligence, lack of resources, lack of capability. But most of all they were the result of a failure of leadership--by the White House, DHS, FEMA, the Louisiana Governor's office, and the New Orleans mayor's office.

To this day, the Department of Homeland Security does not make sufficient distinction between everyday problems that States must deal with on a seasonal basis and the larger catastrophes which, as Katrina demonstrated, quickly overwhelm local and State authorities.

The legislation we are introducing today is an effort to get the Department of Homeland Security to understand that distinction better and to target its preparedness and response to cope better with normal disasters as well as with those rarer but truly catastrophic events. It addresses--to the extent possible--many of the Federal shortcomings exposed by our investigation. And it reflects many of the 88 recommendations the committee reached in its final report on the Katrina investigation.

Let me briefly summarize the bill. First and foremost, we are concerned about our first responders who rush into the middle of catastrophes to save lives. First responders must have the tools they need to protect and save our communities. Think back to September 11. Hundreds of firefighters lost their lives that day for many reasons. Among them was that their radio equipment was not compatible with the police force radios, making it more difficult to learn of the warnings others had that the Twin Towers were going to fall.

During Hurricane Katrina, first responders not only lacked compatible radio equipment, but they lost communication completely when power lines and sub stations were knocked out of operation.

Whether responding to a terrorist attack, natural disaster, fire, a missing

child, or a fleeing suspect, police, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and other responders too frequently cannot share crucial, lifesaving information at the scene of a disaster.

Senator Collins and I introduced a bill, reported out of committee last year, to improve emergency communications, the Assure Emergency and Interoperable Communications for First Responders Act of 2005, S.1725. We have borrowed liberally from it. For example, today's legislation, like S.1725, would require the development of a national strategy for emergency communications; the establishment of an emergency communications research and development program; and dedicated funding for State and local communications and interoperability grants, authorized at $3.3 billion over 5 years.

We would also establish a new Office of Emergency Communications within U.S. EMA by combining existing offices at the Department of Homeland Security that deal with various aspects of emergency communications. Among the offices to be combined are SAFECOM within the Science and Technology Directorate and the National Communications System, which was under the Infrastructure Protection Office during Katrina. This office will make sure that DHS actually has someone in charge of leading the Department's splintered efforts to fix these persistent communications problems.

This legislation also makes changes to the Stafford Act and improves upon other recovery and assistance benefits for the victims of disaster. Among other things, we would require U.S. EMA to develop housing and recovery strategies; we would increase the assistance provided under the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program from 7.5 percent of funds paid out under title IV of the Stafford Act up to 15 percent, depending on the size of the disaster; and we would expand FEMA's authority so that in addition to providing temporary housing it could provide permanent or semipermanent housing, giving it greater flexibility to meet the needs of those affected by a disaster. Unlike FEMA, U.S. EMA would not have to reflexively rely on travel trailers to house victims when other types of housing make more sense.

Victims would be aided further under this legislation by elimination of the subcaps that limited the amount of specific assistance for repairs and home replacement during Katrina and by increased transportation benefits. We would clarify the statute by reinforcing Congress's intent to allow for the use of rental assistance to pay for utility costs and to provide treatment of mental health problems resulting from or aggravated by a disaster. And we would allow U.S. EMA to provide temporary residences to all parts of a household that necessarily must split following a disaster--because of multiple relocations or cases of domestic violence, for example.

If the President finds ``catastrophic damages'' to a locale hit by disaster, he would be able to provide even more assistance under our legislation. The President would be able to double the cap for individual assistance from $26,000 to $52,000, provide unemployment benefits for 52 weeks instead of 26 weeks, provide help with mortgage and rental assistance, and waive maximum limitations on the amount of assistance that can be provided under the Community Disaster Loan Program.

Other provisions in our bill call for increased planning for people with special needs, better ways to get disaster information to those who need it, and measures to assist with family reunification. We would also require government contractors to hire more local firms and local workers.

This legislation also has an extensive section dedicated to saving money for the taxpayers while preventing waste, fraud, and abuse. For example, we would require the U.S. EMA Director to establish an identity verification process to ensure that victims who apply for benefits under the Individuals and Households Program are who they say they are and are in true need. We would create a registry of contractors able to perform common postdisaster work and use advance, competitively awarded contracts for predictably required goods and services. And we would create a contingent of volunteer contracting officers from throughout the Federal Government to assist with additional contracting needs during emergencies.

Our bill would also require U.S. EMA to plan for a disaster far more extensively than it has previously. It requires the development of a national training and exercise program, involving both Federal and State officials, to prepare for natural and manmade disasters. And the U.S. EMA Administrator would have to review the National Response Plan and clarify overlapping or confusing law enforcement, search and rescue, and medical responsibilities.

Mr. President, we are approaching the 1-year anniversary of Katrina-- August 29. Much has changed since that time. Certainly, the gulf coast is better prepared to meet a disaster this hurricane season. Yet many victimized by Hurricane Katrina, as well as those vulnerable to natural disasters or terrorist attacks elsewhere, still face uncertain futures.

We cannot forget those still struggling to rebuild their lives from the devastation wrought by Katrina almost a year ago. This legislation was designed to address specific problems exposed by Katrina, so as it moves through the legislative process, we must do all that we can to ensure that the President has the authority he needs to provide assistance to past victims, as well as to victims of future disasters. We must also make certain that, unlike FEMA, U.S. EMA has all of the resources it needs to lead a national preparedness effort and to respond to whatever occurs in a manner that the American people have a right to expect.

The committee's investigation found that FEMA had never been prepared for a catastrophic event but also that it had budget shortages that hindered its preparedness and impeded its performance. Scott Wells, FEMA's Deputy Federal Coordinating Officer in Lousiana, summed it up. He said, ``This was a catastrophic disaster. We don't have the structure; we don't have the people for catastrophic disaster. It's that simple . . . If you want a big capability, you've got to make a big investment. And there is no investment in response operations for a catastrophic disaster. It's not there.''

Clearly, if the Federal Government is to improve its performance in the next disaster, we must give it sufficient resources. This legislation takes an important step in that direction by providing a $49 million increase for FEMA's two key operating accounts in fiscal year 2008 and an additional $53 million in fiscal year 2009. However, I believe even more is necessary, and I will work to secure additional resources as U.S. EMA becomes a reality.

The Department of Homeland Security was established not to address average disasters--the hurricanes that reliably strike certain parts of the country each year or flooding from heavy rains. DHS was established to prevent, prepare for, and if necessary respond to horrific catastrophes that demand all the resources our Federal Government has to offer in times of need or when local and State governments are overwhelmed by what has befallen them.

This legislation is a reminder of that original purpose, an effort to get the Department of Homeland Security back to where Congress originally envisioned it should be. This bill will help the Department be as prepared for and able to respond to catastrophes as the American public expects it to be.

Mr. President, today I join with my colleague Senator Lieberman to introduce the Eightmile Wild and Scenic River Act to designate certain segments of the Eightmile River in the State of Connecticut as components of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

The National Wild and Scenic Rivers System was created by Congress in 1968 to create a ``Hall of Fame'' for exceptional rivers. Eligible rivers or river segments must meet two criteria; first,

the river corridor must be free flowing and, second, it must contain at least one outstanding remarkable resource deserving special recognition, such as a prominent natural, cultural, scenic, or recreational resource.

Over the course of the past few years, the National Park Service has responded to interest and inquiries from local advocates and town officials regarding a potential Wild and Scenic River designation for the Eightmile River located in south central Connecticut. While a local management plan has been developed, studies have shown that fifteen miles of the Eightmile River and its East Branch through the communities of Lyme, East Haddam, and Salem, CT, were already included on the National Park Service's Nationwide Rivers Inventory of potential Wild and Scenic River segments. Both segments have great recreational value and are included on the inventory for outstanding scenic, geologic, and fish and wildlife values. More than 80 percent of the Connecticut River watershed is still forested, including large tracts of unfragmented hardwood forests that are home to a diverse assemblage of plants and animals including bobcats, great horned owls, red foxes and roughly 180 other species of birds, plants, fish, and reptiles.

The impetus for gaining wild and scenic designation of segments of the Eightmile River originated locally in 1995 when local officials and citizens began working on protection efforts. A variety of local, State, and Federal watershed protection programs were considered, and a Wild & Scenic River study and designation were determined to be the best way to achieve the local vision of a protected watershed. It was found that six special ``resource values'' are present in the Eightmile River Watershed. These resource values are: Watershed hydrology, water quality, unique species and natural communities, geology, the watershed ecosystem, and the cultural landscape. Preserving and enhancing these values is the basis of the Eightmile River Management Plan and ultimately the pursuit of wild and scenic designation. Earlier this year I joined with residents of East Haddam, CT, to endorse the management plan.

Connecticut is a small State in area, but it is densely populated and it is essential that balance is achieved between conservation and economic growth. As one of the most diverse and thriving ecosystems in the lower Connecticut River Valley, it is essential that we work to preserve this river while all parties, local, State and Federal, are willing and able to support this ecosystem. The Eightmile River, like many other rivers in America, can still be stewarded for future generations of Americans as both a recreational treasure and an unblemished ecological haven.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I join with my colleague Senator Lieberman to introduce the Eightmile Wild and Scenic River Act to designate certain segments of the Eightmile River in the State of Connecticut as components of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

The National Wild and Scenic Rivers System was created by Congress in 1968 to create a ``Hall of Fame'' for exceptional rivers. Eligible rivers or river segments must meet two criteria; first,

the river corridor must be free flowing and, second, it must contain at least one outstanding remarkable resource deserving special recognition, such as a prominent natural, cultural, scenic, or recreational resource.

Over the course of the past few years, the National Park Service has responded to interest and inquiries from local advocates and town officials regarding a potential Wild and Scenic River designation for the Eightmile River located in south central Connecticut. While a local management plan has been developed, studies have shown that fifteen miles of the Eightmile River and its East Branch through the communities of Lyme, East Haddam, and Salem, CT, were already included on the National Park Service's Nationwide Rivers Inventory of potential Wild and Scenic River segments. Both segments have great recreational value and are included on the inventory for outstanding scenic, geologic, and fish and wildlife values. More than 80 percent of the Connecticut River watershed is still forested, including large tracts of unfragmented hardwood forests that are home to a diverse assemblage of plants and animals including bobcats, great horned owls, red foxes and roughly 180 other species of birds, plants, fish, and reptiles.

The impetus for gaining wild and scenic designation of segments of the Eightmile River originated locally in 1995 when local officials and citizens began working on protection efforts. A variety of local, State, and Federal watershed protection programs were considered, and a Wild & Scenic River study and designation were determined to be the best way to achieve the local vision of a protected watershed. It was found that six special ``resource values'' are present in the Eightmile River Watershed. These resource values are: Watershed hydrology, water quality, unique species and natural communities, geology, the watershed ecosystem, and the cultural landscape. Preserving and enhancing these values is the basis of the Eightmile River Management Plan and ultimately the pursuit of wild and scenic designation. Earlier this year I joined with residents of East Haddam, CT, to endorse the management plan.

Connecticut is a small State in area, but it is densely populated and it is essential that balance is achieved between conservation and economic growth. As one of the most diverse and thriving ecosystems in the lower Connecticut River Valley, it is essential that we work to preserve this river while all parties, local, State and Federal, are willing and able to support this ecosystem. The Eightmile River, like many other rivers in America, can still be stewarded for future generations of Americans as both a recreational treasure and an unblemished ecological haven.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today, I introduce the EPSCoR Research and Competitive Act of 2006, and I am proud to have the bipartisan support of my colleagues, Senators Snowe, Inouye, Cochran and Johnson.

The Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, EPSCoR, at the National Science Foundation, NSF, is designed to help states that historically do not receive much NSF funding to compete more effectively for grants. NSF maintains it high standards, but it also provides help to States to meet such standards. Such an investment is fundamental to help promote our country's competitiveness nationwide. Twenty-six States are eligible for the EPSCoR program, and these States represent 20 percent of our population, 25 percent of our doctoral and research universities, and 18 percent of our academic scientists and engineers. The EPSCoR states also represent unique environments for scientific research with Hawaii and Alaska having unique features. Montana is a major area for paleontology. Six of the top ten energy producing States are EPSCoR States. It is common sense to invest in building research capacity in our EPSCoR States.

We also know that EPSCoR works. More than one-half of the researchers supported by NSF's EPSCoR program during the first 10 years later were successful in competing for non-EPSCoR funding. Also, 75 percent of new technology companies started by university research are based in the States where the original research was done. To strengthen our research and enhance competitiveness EPSCoR is a smart investment.

Within the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act of 2006, is a provision authorizing the EPSCoR program at $125 million, and stating that EPSCoR funding should increase in proportion with the overall NSF budget. This package was marked up by the Senate Commerce Committee on May 18, 2006 with bipartisan support.

Clearly, there is agreement that EPSCoR needs to be part of our national strategy for competitiveness. This legislation adds some specifics to that goal. The bill proposes that the Research Infrastructure Improvements Grant increase to $75 million. It seeks 20 percent of the EPSCoR budget for the co-funding program, an innovative initiative to help encourage each of the NSF directorates to collaborate and fund meritorious projects from the EPSCoR States. It encourages the NSF Director to develop creative ways to ensure that the EPSCoR States are part of the new major initiatives of the foundation, including cyber-infrastructure and major research instrumentation.

West Virginia has truly benefited from the EPSCoR program. Since 2001, competitive Federal research in West Virginia has risen from $35.8 million to $60.1 million which is a 68 percent increase. In 2005 alone, research created more than $147 million in economic activity and supported 4,432 jobs. EPSCoR has also been the catalyst for enhanced cooperation between West Virginia's leading universities, West Virginia University and Marshall University.

This legislation will add to the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act's goal of promoting competitiveness in the EPSCoR States which helps our entire country.