HR152-119

What This Bill Does

The Federal Disaster Assistance Coordination Act rewrites Disaster Recovery Reform Act section 1223. Within two years, the FEMA Administrator must coordinate with the Small Business Administration, Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Disaster Assistance Working Group of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, and other agencies to study and plan how disaster-assistance applications and grantee information collection can be modified, streamlined, expedited, made more flexible, consolidated, and simplified. FEMA must also develop a plan for regular collection and reporting of federal disaster assistance awards and maintain a public website for that information. Separately, FEMA must convene a regular working group with CIGIE, the Secretary of Labor, OMB Director, HHS Secretary, SBA Administrator, Transportation Secretary, Commerce Assistant Secretary for Economic Development, and other agencies to identify duplication in preliminary damage assessments, consider whether one federal agency could make assessments for all agencies, and examine emerging technologies such as unmanned aircraft systems. FEMA must send one comprehensive report to House Transportation and Infrastructure and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, publish it in downloadable and machine-readable formats when applicable, and brief Congress on request within 180 days after submission.

Who Benefits and How

Disaster survivors, disaster-assistance applicants, state emergency-management agencies, local governments, tribal governments, territorial governments, nonprofit grantees, small businesses seeking recovery aid, HUD disaster-recovery grantees, SBA disaster-loan applicants, and the public benefit from less duplicative paperwork, fewer repeated damage-assessment requests, clearer award data, and a public disaster-assistance website. If FEMA identifies a common assessment process or useful unmanned-aircraft tools, applicants and grantees could spend less time resubmitting the same information to multiple federal programs.

Who Bears the Burden and How

FEMA, SBA, HUD, the Disaster Assistance Working Group, CIGIE staff, OMB, Department of Labor, HHS, Department of Transportation, Economic Development Administration, federal disaster-assistance program managers, congressional committee staff, and agency data teams must conduct the study, create the plan, convene the working group, reconcile agency-specific assessment rules, build or maintain the reporting website, produce downloadable and machine-readable materials, and brief Congress. Unmanned aircraft systems providers may gain opportunity from the technology review but also face scrutiny over whether their tools meet FEMA modernization requirements.

Key Provisions

• Amends Disaster Recovery Reform Act section 1223 to require a FEMA-led study and plan on streamlined disaster-assistance information collection.
• Requires a plan for regular public reporting of federal disaster-assistance awards through a FEMA website.
• Directs FEMA and CIGIE to convene an interagency working group on duplicative preliminary damage assessments.
• Requires the working group to consider whether one federal agency could make preliminary damage assessments for all agencies.
• Requires analysis of emerging technologies such as unmanned aircraft systems to expedite damage assessments.
• Requires a comprehensive public report, machine-readable formats when applicable, and congressional briefings on request.