Capito Questions USACE on Hurricane Ida Response

Press Release

U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, today participated in a hearing to examine the response by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to Hurricane Ida.

HIGHLIGHTS:

STREAMLINING PROCESSES TO GET HELP: "But what we hear from our local partners sometimes--and even FEMA in some sense--is that sometime the processes to get help are so doggone complicated. And so you've got an opportunity through the climate program that you said you wrote that has five different aspects to it to really streamline some of these…What we found was chaos but managed chaos. I think we could have done better with it and recovered quicker had we had a bit more hand holding and a more simplistic way to react to some of those."

KEEPING TRACK OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS: "We have just appropriated $5.7 billion in supplemental appropriations as part of the continuing resolution. I was wondering your process and timeline for expending these funds, if you have any ideas on that? Will you make sure that information regarding this funding when we make requests for information that that comes in a timely fashion?"

IDA'S IMPACT ON THE NORTHEAST: "We were all astounded when we saw Hurricane Ida flooding the subways in New York City. I think that was something we hadn't ever really anticipated. What do you attribute that to? Was there something pre-disaster that could have been better conformed to mitigate that?"

ADDRESSING AGING WATER INFRASTRUCTURE: "The bill that we passed--[the Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act]--that was incorporated into the BIF, in terms of trying to manage and modernize some of these old storm systems. I don't know how old New York City's storm system is, but I would imagine it's in the excess of 100 years. Certainly we have systems that old in our state."

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