Col. Donovan M. Vance, director, Illinois Civil Defense Agency. Philip A. Hart, a U.S. Senator from the State of Michigan.. Robert Phillips, Director, Emergency Operations, Office of Emergency Planning; accompanied by Mordecai M. Merker, General Counsel. Frank Turner, Director, Bureau of Public Roads, Department of Transpor- Clarence Cowles, Director, Office of Disaster Loans, Small Business Administration; accompanied by Arthur M. Blacklow, Assistant General Counsel and Jack Frost, Director, Emergency Loan Division, Farmers Frost, Jack, Director, Emergency Loan Division, Farmers Home Adminis- Hart, Philip A., a U.S. Senator from the State of Michigan_ Kinsey, Robert J., attorney, Russiaville, Ind.......... Merker, Mordecai M., General Counsel, Office of Emergency Planning. Mishler, Everett, Elkhart County, Ind.. O'Neal, Robert, superintendent, Indiana State Police. Phillips, Robert, Director, Emergency Operations, Office of Emergency Turner, Frank, Director, Bureau of Public Roads, Department of Trans- Vance, Col. Donovan M., director, Illinois Civil Defense Agency. 93 108, 112 31 Caton, Hubert D., Route 2, Middlebury, Ind... Frost, Jack, Director, Emergency Loan Division, Farmers Home Adminis- Indiana Disaster Relief Committee, document submitted for the record... Major disaster declarations-1966, table.... Major provisions of proposed Disaster Relief Act of 1967, S. 438, summary Memorandum, giving dollars and percentage of OEP funds expended on "Non-Federal highways", submitted by Robert Phillips at the request of DISASTER RELIEF ACT OF 1967 FRIDAY, JUNE 9, 1967 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ROADS OF THE Dunlap, Ind. The subcommittee met at 9 a.m., at the Concord Township Fire Department, Dunlap, Ind., Senator Birch Bayh presiding. Present: Senator Birch Bayh. Also present: Barry Meyer, counsel; and Clark Norton, legislative assistant. Senator BAYH. If we can convene the hearing, we will get started. Let me make a relatively brief statement at the beginning of our hearing this morning, in order to lay the groundwork for our presence. First, however, I would like to acknowledge all of those who have made a significant contribution, including the Elkhart County staff and my personal staff, in making arrangements for the meeting. I also want to thank all of you for attending and for letting us have your very candid and frank opinion of personal experiences you have had with disasters and with existent legislation designed to deal with disasters. Before calling the first witness this morning, it might be helpful to review briefly the background of the bill under consideration today, which presently is S. 438. My involvement with disaster legislation, as many of you know, began over 2 years ago when several States were ravaged by very destructive tornadoes on Palm Sunday which, in Indiana alone, killed 138 persons and injured over 1,300. Some 300 were hospitalized. There was property damage in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Suffering occurred, the likes of which it is difficult to believe. I told Woody Caton during our drive this morning from the airport, as one who had a chance to visit the scene shortly after the tornado and view the terrible acts of nature, that it's impossible to describe what happened unless one actually saw the distruction himself. During that same spring, several other parts of the country were affected by very serious floods. After reviewing statutory authority of the Federal Government to provide assistance to victims of major disasters, I became convinced that additional legislation was needed. In fact, after being on the scene here, I called Dr. Norton, my legislative assistant, from the South Bend airport, and instructed him to check present laws, call Federal agencies involved with disasters, and consult with the staffs of other Senators whose States had been affected by the tornadoes. As I recall, there were eight or nine other States that had been ravaged by disasters during the spring of 1964. 1 After returning to Washington the next morning, we invited either the Senators or their legislative assistants from those States to meet in my office, and we started. As a result of these efforts more than 40 other Senators joined me on April 30, 1965, in introducing S. 1861, a bill which was drafted following extensive investigation and discussion after that first meeting in our office. This measure proposed a comprehensive revision of our basic disaster laws which would establish a permanent, meaningful system of disaster relief. This bill had three main objectives, with which some of you are no doubt familiar. First, it would provide prompt aid on a continuing, standby basis and thereby avoid the necessity of Congress having to authorize special, separate Federal legislation for disaster sufferers after each catastrophic occurrence. Traditionally, Congress has dealt with this by separate bills, after the fact. For instance, the Betsy bill dealt only with the hurricane which swept Louisiana, and others, such as the Alaska disaster relief bill and the Northwest disaster relief bill, have applied to specific disasters only. It seemed to me that we needed standby legislation which could cope with such disasters on a continuing basis without having to deal on the spur of the moment with the problem. The second objective was to broaden and enlarge the kinds of assistance offered to various units of government incurring damage to public facilities, and the third was to provide help to private citizens whose homes, businesses, and other property have been lost or seriously harmed by natural disasters. On July 22, 1965, the Senate unanimously approved S. 1861 as it had been reported out by this committee, which had dealt with this bill expeditiously and favorably. In fact, as I recall, the bill had the unusual fate of being even more beneficial and more liberal in its terms at the time the Public Works Committee completed its review than it had when first introduced. Unfortunately, more than a year elapsed before the House of Representatives adopted the bill last October 17. Frankly, this was one of the most frustrating things I have experienced in my 5 years in the Senate. First of all, there was considerable delay before the House finally held hearings. Congressman Ryan did an excellent job in conducting those hearings, but one of the minority members of the committee appeared to be determined to scuttle the measure. It took the combined efforts of the Congressmen of the affected districts to overcome this opposition. An all-out effort was waged which finally got the House moving, and the bill was adopted on the 17th of October, 1965, but, unfortunately, many of the provisions of the Senate bill which were in it originally were removed. Among the important provisions retained were the following: those dealing with loan adjustments, disaster warnings, assistance to unincorporated communities, restoration of public facilities and nonduplication of benefits. Because these sections were enacted, I think the bill did make some positive contributions. The section providing help to elementary and secondary schools damaged in disasters, which was certainly a muchneeded feature in Indiana after the Palm Sunday tornado, was deleted because its provisions were incorporated in another act and it was no longer needed. The House instead wisely substituted a section authorizing aid for higher education facilities suffering similar damage, which had been overlooked in our study, and this was included in the final act. Also the House authorized an extension of time for the fulfilling of requirements in certain public land matters, and directed the President to plan and coordinate through the Office of Emergency Planning, all major disaster assistance, and ordered a study to be made of methods to prevent or minimize losses from forest and grass fires. Nevertheless, despite the fact that our efforts did result in important legislation, significant portions of S. 1861 were eliminated in the final act, which is now Public Law 89-769. Among the sections deleted by the House were those which proposed a new grant-in-aid system to the States for direct financial assistance to homeowners and businesses, special authority to provide dwelling accommodations for families whose homes have been destroyed or made uninhabitable, aid for farmers to help offset losses to farmland and livestock, and authorizing disaster loans to homeowners and business concerns without regard to whether or not the required financial assistance might be provided by private sources. With respect to the latter point we found a rather unique situation. It is difficult to know how measures are going to work until a disaster happens, and that, incidentally, is why I hope you will help us and why we wanted to come into the Dunlap disaster area in order that you would have the opportunity to share with us some of your views and experiences. We learned previously that there could be two people, side by side, equally affected by a disaster in a small business loan area, but if a person had done his best and tried to maintain his financial integrity and had an acceptable credit rating-in other words, if he was a good businessman and had those traits that we feel are desirable-he could not qualify for a Small Business Administration loan. However, his next door neighbor, who might have been a wastrel, a bad business risk, could qualify for a Small Business Administration loan, because he was not able to borrow through regular channels. This, in my judg ment, is not only inequitable, but it provides the wrong type of incentives; it destroys the incentive to do the things that most of us feel are important. It seems to me there are other areas that need to be covered. Our goal of providing comprehensive, permanent, meaningful relief for the victims of major disasters cannot be achieved until these provisions that were omitted from the original bill have been restored. There was no opportunity last fall because the bill was passed by the House so late in the last session, to seek restoration of these matters through conference. This measure which is before us really breaks no new ground. It contains only those provisions which were previously adopted by the Senate in the unanimous vote on July 22, 1965, but were not included in the final bill enacted by the House. At the conclusion of my remarks I would like to have inserted in the hearing record a summary which explains in some detail different sections of the bill. Although there is no need to review in detail what these are now, perhaps it would be helpful for me to make some comments on them, and then ask for your further comments. |