Norton to Testify at Senate Hearing on Disaster Preparedness of the National Capital Region, Today

WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will testify today at a Senate Subcommittee on Emergency Management, Intergovernmental Relations, and the District of Columbia hearing to examine disaster preparedness of the National Capital Region at 2:00 p.m. in 342 Dirksen Senate Office Building. Norton will address concerns about regional coordination efforts, following unprecedented disasters such as the D.C. earthquake of 2011, and in light of a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) proposal to reduce terrorist and disaster protection for the nation's capital by moving many of the Office of National Capital Region Coordination functions from D.C. to Pennsylvania, over 100 miles from the D.C. metropolitan area it is required to protect. Last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee barred the changes FEMA had proposed, as Norton requested in a letter, in the fiscal year 2014 Homeland Security Appropriations bill report.

"I was deeply concerned about a FEMA proposal to move the Office of National Capital Region Coordination over a hundred miles away from the region it is mandated to protect," said Norton, "I appreciate that Senate appropriators responded to my letter concerning the proposed move by requiring that FEMA cease its efforts to relocate the office from this region."

Published: July 31, 2013