By Geof Koss
Senate Democrats are readying legislation to address disaster response issues raised by Hurricane Sandy, which left a wide swath of destruction after hitting the East Coast last month.
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said Wednesday that she is drafting Sandy-related provisions for inclusion in the Water Resources Development Act, which funds Army Corps of Engineers water projects.
“I’ve added a whole new section dealing with how to prepare for these extreme weather events,” Boxer said. “Basically it will be making sure that we have advice from the experts as to what infrastructure we will have to build to protect people. That’s one of the pieces of it.”
The committee will hold a hearing Thursday on the draft legislation, which Boxer hopes to report out of committee before the end of the year.
Separately, New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand said she is working with Louisiana Democrat Mary L. Landrieu on Senate legislation that would make changes to federal disaster response programs.
“Everything’s been destroyed for too many people, and so we want to be able to have a better response than we had for Hurricane Katrina,” she said.
Landrieu said Wednesday the package is separate from a supplemental emergency spending bill being assembled to help the Northeast recover from Sandy. However, she suggested the two could be packaged together if jurisdictional issues with the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee could be resolved.
Landrieu signaled that the model for the package would be changes to federal disaster programs that she pushed into law after the 2005 hurricane season, when Katrina and Rita pounded the Gulf Coast within weeks of each other.
Although Landrieu fought to make the changes permanent at the time, she said Republican opposition limited most of them to victims of the 2005 storms.
“So basically my staff now is going back and pulling all of the old Katrina and Rita laws that the Republicans would not let us do prospectively for everyone else,” said Landrieu, who intends to push to make the provisions permanent going forward. “We don’t need to be reinventing the wheel after each catastrophe in the United States.”
Among the changes that Landrieu hopes to make permanent through the new legislation is a provision she included in the 2009 economic stimulus (PL 111-5) that allowed third-party arbitration for multiple disputes between her state and the Federal Emergency Management Agency over major hurricane repair projects. An aide said arbitration replaced the cumbersome FEMA appeals process.
Landrieu also wants to expand a provision that waives the 25 percent cut in federal funds that communities face if they plan to rebuild schools, courthouses, and fire and police stations in different locations — even if the new sites are safer. It also allows lump sum payments to rebuild multiple facilities damaged by natural disasters. An aide to Landrieu said that facilitates better reconstruction planning.
Both provisions are included in a disaster recovery bill (S. 1630) that Landrieu introduced last year with Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Aides said other provisions in that bill may be included in the new disaster package, including the elimination of a $5 million cap on FEMA community disaster loans and the reauthorization of two pilot programs that were used to remove debris.
