Senate panel defeats bill that would forgive debt for some disaster victims
Committee could reconsider bill that aims to help those who owe money because of erroneous payments.
A bill that would waive certain debts for those who received disaster assistance erroneously from the government has experienced a setback.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday voted down the legislation (S.792), introduced by Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., that would allow the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to forgive debts since 2005 resulting from FEMA's errors, though not those resulting from fraud.
"It possibly may come up again," said Leslie Phillips, committee communications director, referring to the legislation.
The measure also waived debt for all cases in which an applicant for disaster relief assistance was declared ineligible as a result of FEMA's determination that the applicant's home is in a community not participating in the National Flood Insurance Program.
FEMA provides disaster assistance to individuals and families through its Individuals and Households Program. IHP grants cannot exceed $29,900 per individual or household and are usually limited to 18 months. Since hurricanes Katrina and Rita, FEMA has disbursed more than $7 billion in IHP funds; a report from DHS' inspector general found FEMA had distributed $643 million in improper payments among 160,000 applicants after those two disasters because of human error or fraud. The agency has improved its process for recovering such improper payments, recouping more than $47 million in 2010 from those affected by the two hurricanes.
Legislation that aims to reform the Federal Protective Service, a DHS agency responsible for protecting 9,000 federal buildings nationwide, had more success Wednesday. The committee approved by voice vote the SECURE Facilities Act of 2011 (S. 772). The bill requires FPS to hire additional full-time employees, and not have fewer than 1,371 full-time employees in fiscal 2012. The legislation also calls on FPS to increase its guard training, establish procedures for retraining or terminating ineffective guards, establish performance-based standards to detect explosives and other threats at federal facilities, and create a database of guard service contracts.
"The FPS is a dysfunctional agency, struggling to perform its mission, and the evidence of that is overwhelming," Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said. "This legislation is urgently needed to set the agency back on course so it can protect the thousands of people who work and visit federal buildings."