The American Public Power Association on May 15 filed comments with the Federal Emergency Management Agency Review Council in response to its request for information on experiences with FEMA disaster response, recovery, and preparedness programs.
APPA formed a short-term member working group to help develop the comments, which identified three overarching assessments of FEMA with several recommendations to address those assessments.
• Assessment 1: FEMA should improve the process by which it awards assistance for utility projects, which currently vary from year to year and event to event, leading to challenges in consistency and efficiency.
APPA said that FEMA should increase the accountability of FEMA program managers to address this issue. It should also develop a standardized Public Assistance (PA) Program requirements checklist and it should increase its engagement with utilities.
• Assessment 2: The FEMA disaster assistance process should account for the unique nature of public power’s emergency response role following major incidents.
APPA said that FEMA should streamline or waive some data requirements for emergency work, expedite assistance to utilities facing multiple disasters and create a new Public Assistance “Category of Work” for utility emergency restoration efforts.
• Assessment 3: There is a perceived lack of institutional knowledge and experience of the utility sector at FEMA
In order to address this issue, APPA said that FEMA should train its program managers on electric utility specific issues and challenges.
The comments also noted that APPA believes FEMA plays an appropriate role in assisting communities that are overwhelmed by a disaster. However, significant reforms, such as the proposed noted above, are needed at FEMA to streamline how federal assistance is requested, approved, and disbursed when needed.
