Washington, DC – At a hearing Monday of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (HSGAC), U.S. Senator Mark Dayton again pushed for answers on the status of a FEMA flood recovery grant request made by the city of Roseau. The committee met to hear testimony from David Norquist, the Bush Administration’s nominee to be Chief Financial Officer for the Department of Homeland Security.

“I’ve had the greatest of difficulty, to my frustration, getting information from Secretary Chertoff,” said Dayton before the Committee. “FEMA has been more of an obstructionist, I regret to say, than an ally in the effort to rebuild Roseau and some of its key projects, to repair what occurred and to prevent future flooding.”

The city of Roseau applied for a Hazard Mitigation grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in March of 2003, and was not informed by the agency until December 6, 2005 that it had been denied. The city appealed that decision, five months ago, and has yet to receive a response from FEMA or from the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the agency.

At a March HSGAC hearing, Dayton personally informed Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff of the extensive delays Roseau has experienced throughout FEMA’s grant process, and handed the Secretary a letter requesting the status of the city’s application. Several weeks later, having still not received a response from the Secretary, Dayton approached Chertoff outside the U.S. Capitol and again inquired whether any progress had been made on Roseau’s appeal. Though Chertoff pledged, for the second time, to give the matter his personal attention, neither Dayton’s office nor the city of Roseau has received a response.

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