Homeland Security
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Mr. Chairman, I want to begin by commending you for leading another open, collaborative, and bipartisan process in constructing the appropriations bill the subcommittee is considering today. We will never agree on every issue or funding level, but you and your staff have consistently worked with our side of the aisle in good faith, and have accommodated members of both parties in many instances. So I will be supporting the chairman's mark, and I encourage my colleagues to do the same.
We are fortunate to have a healthy allocation, especially as it compares to the budget request – which is $887 million lower. But more importantly, our allocation is healthy relative to the Department's needs, with one major exception having to do with the classification of most of the National Protection and Programs Directorate as Defense spending.
Administrator Fugate, thank you for joining us this morning to discuss FEMA's proposed budget for fiscal year 2015. Your tenure has been a busy one, particularly in 2011, which brought a record high 99 Major Disaster Declarations, along with 29 Emergency Declarations and 114 Fire Management Assistance Declarations, also a record level. Since 2011, we have seen an additional 109 Major Declarations, including of course Superstorm Sandy in 2012 – the biggest test of FEMA's capabilities since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.