White House Request for Sandy Aid Expected to Include Flood Insurance Funds

November 28, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle3 CommentsThe White House is expected in the coming days to send Congress a multibillion dollar request to fund recovery from Superstorm Sandy, which caused an estimated $71 billion in damages in New York and New Jersey.

Congressional aides said there was no clear indication of the request’s size, but some said it would likely be at least $11 billion.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund had access to about $7.8 billion as Sandy slammed the U.S. East Coast on Oct. 29, causing widespread destruction in coastal New York and New Jersey.

Lawmakers and analysts also said Congress will need to shore up the heavily indebted National Flood Insurance Program in the face of $12 billion in payouts resulting from Sandy, ranked as the second-worst disaster in U.S. history.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, asked about the additional Sandy funding request, said: “Well, we can’t do anything with the disaster aid package until we get something from the White House, and I’m told that will be here as early as tomorrow or the next day.”

A White House official declined to provide any details about the administration’s plans. “We are working closely with our partners in the states and in Congress, but it’s premature to speculate on specific actions as we work to ensure the governors have the necessary support,” the official said.

Lawmakers from both parties have voiced support for providing additional disaster relief in Sandy’s wake, but a massive funding request from President Barack Obama could be disruptive to already tense negotiations over year-end tax hikes and automatic spending cuts.

“It’s bound to be large, and we’ll need to scrub it carefully to determine real needs from wishful requests, which will take a little time,” a senior House Republican aide said of the funding package.

Representative Chaka Fattah, a Democratic member of the House Appropriations Committee from Pennsylvania, introduced a $12 billion emergency disaster relief bill four days after Sandy hit. No action has been taken on the measure, which is expected to be superceded by the White House request.

The White House official said that the administration has already obligated more than $1.9 billion to support Sandy response and recovery efforts. This includes $960 million in direct assistance to individuals affected by the storm.

On Monday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state will need $41.9 billion, including $32.8 billion for relief costs and damage repairs and another $9.1 billion to mitigate potential damage from future storms.

New Jersey suffered at least $29.4 billion in overall losses, Governor Chris Christie said on Friday.

Congress has routinely approved emergency supplemental appropriations to cope with unanticipated disaster relief costs, most notably for Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.

Two weeks after that storm flooded New Orleans, Congress approved $62.3 billion in disaster appropriations. It added another $29 billion by Dec. 30 after Hurricanes Rita and Wilma hit the Gulf Coast, and another $19.3 billion for those storms by June 2006. Supplemental appropriations for Katrina costs were still being made as late as 2010.

FLOOD INSURANCE SHORE-UP

Lawmakers are expected to shore up the National Flood Insurance Program by raising its $20.8 billion borrowing authority ceiling, since it has a commitment to pay policyholders hit by Sandy.

The FEMA-run program is essentially the only U.S. flood insurer for residences.

Putting more money into the program would come months after Obama signed a law aimed at improving its finances. Congress bailed out the program after Katrina in 2005, and it is $18 billion in debt.

Senator Tim Johnson, a South Dakota Democrat and chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, will “closely monitor developments to make sure that the NFIP is able to meet its obligations and pay claims to policyholders,” a committee aide said.

FEMA has estimated Sandy-related losses of $6 billion to $12 billion. That is far beyond the insurance program’s more than $690 million in cash and $3 billion in untapped borrowing authority.

A spokeswoman for the White House’s Office of Management and Budget said that as of last week, FEMA had processed 133,461 flood claims from the storm and paid out $302 million.

 

Copyright 2012 Reuters. Click for restrictions.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: National NewsTopics: federal disaster aid, flood insurance funds, National Flood Insurance Program, NFIP funds, Sandy federal disaster aidHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

View the Original article

White House Readies Executive Order on Cybersecurity

September 25, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle16 CommentsThe White House is preparing to direct federal agencies to develop voluntary cybersecurity guidelines for owners of power, water and other critical infrastructure facilities, according to people who said they had seen recent drafts of an executive order.

The prospective order would give the agencies 90 days to propose new regulations and create a new cybersecurity council at the Department of Homeland Security with representatives from the Defense Department, Justice Department, Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Commerce, a former government cyber-security official told Reuters.

“It tells those who have the ability to regulate to go forth and do so,” said the person, who is currently outside the government and spoke on condition of anonymity in order to preserve access to government officials.

The draft executive order includes elements of what had been the leading cybersecurity overhaul bill in the Senate, which was defeated this summer amid opposition from industries opposed to increased regulation.

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, an independent and one of the principal authors of that bill, on Monday urged the White House to issue such an order.

“The Department of Homeland Security has clear authority, if directed by you, to conduct risk assessments of critical infrastructure, identify those systems or assets that are most vulnerable to cyber attack and issue voluntary standards for those critical systems or assets to maintain adequate cybersecurity,” Lieberman wrote to President Barack Obama.

The document has been circulating among the agencies and might go to top officials for their comments as soon as this week, another person involved in the process said.

A spokeswoman for the administration’s National Security Council, Caitlin Hayden, confirmed that an order was being considered but would not provide details. “We’re not commenting on the elements,” Hayden said.

PUBLIC-PRIVATE COOPERATION

Former White House cybersecurity policy coordinator Howard Schmidt said the proposed order would also ask DHS to confer with independent agencies, such as electric regulators and others that don’t answer to the president, to see who would take responsibility on cybersecurity.

The hope, said Schmidt, who has seen a recent draft, is that if those agencies won’t let DHS act they would do it themselves, as the Securities and Exchange Commission did in October when it issued guidance on when companies should disclose cyber attacks.

The Commerce Department and the Pentagon declined to comment. Spokespeople for Lieberman and for Senator John Rockefeller, another Democratic leader on the issue who has asked for an executive order, said their offices had not been given copies of the draft.

Cybersecurity has become a major issue in Congress and for the White House, with intelligence officials warning of constant exploration of protected computer systems by hackers and both past incursions and the likelihood of more damaging future attacks on electric plants, banks and stock exchanges.

As of two weeks ago, the planned order did not include any penalties for companies that fail to adhere to the standards. or rewards for those who do. “There are no carrots or sticks,” one person with a recent copy said.

If the order emerges before the election in November, it could become an issue in the campaign. Leading Republicans faulted the Lieberman bill as too onerous. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which also criticized that bill, declined to comment on Monday on the merits of a prospective order.

But Lieberman said his bill had been watered down in pursuit of a compromise and asked in his letter Monday that Obama explore means for making the standards mandatory.

Both Lieberman and administration officials have said they will still seek legislation, which could go further in many ways. It might, for example, provide liability protection for companies that share information with government officials or that meet the standards but still get hacked.

 

Copyright 2012 Reuters. Click for restrictions.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: National NewsTopics: federal cybersecurity legisaltion, Obama Administration cybersecurity executive order, Senate cybersecurity billHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

View the Original article