National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) CEO Jim Matheson testified before a House panel in July to urge Congress to pass legislation that would streamline the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and speed up delivery of crucial relief funds to electric cooperatives devastated by natural disasters.
“Congress should pass the FEMA Act quickly so rural families, farmers and businesses are not left behind when the next disaster hits,” Matheson said.
The committee voted last September to advance the bipartisan Fixing Emergency Management for Americans (FEMA) Act with support from NRECA. Committee leaders and NRECA advocates are pushing House leaders to bring the bill to the floor for a vote this year. The Senate must also act for the bill to become law.
The FEMA Act would continue the agency’s critical Public Assistance program, which Matheson called “a lifeline for electric cooperatives after natural disasters.”
“Every year, co-ops lose poles, transformers, power lines, substations and other critical infrastructure to ice storms, tornadoes, floods and other events,” he said. The legislation would also help cut through the red tape that can delay recovery for co-ops and the rural communities they serve, he added.
He said the bill would provide improvements aligned with NRECA’s five top FEMA reform priorities, which aim to “make FEMA faster, more transparent, and more effective for cooperatives and the communities that depend on reliable power.”
