WASHINGTON – During a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing today, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) pressed experts on how to strengthen disaster recovery and mitigation programs for communities like Globe and Miami in Arizona, where recent historic flooding devastated neighborhoods and business, claiming three lives, in addition to the dozens of other lives lost to extreme weather in Arizona this year. The Senator visited Globe and Miami earlier this month.
Watch Senator Gallego’s questioning HERE.
“Three weeks ago, I was in the cities of Globe and Miami, Arizona, walking through neighborhoods devastated by historic floods that tragically claimed three lives,” said Senator Gallego. “I met families who had paid off their mortgages just to watch everything they worked for wash away. But what hit me hardest was their grit and how the community rallied. They’re going to rebuild, they’ve been there for generations. And of course I’m going to be there fighting with them.”
Gallego emphasized the urgent need to restore disaster mitigation funding, including the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, which helped states and localities prepare against natural disasters. After the Trump administration eliminated the program earlier this year, Senator Gallego called to reinstate it.
“That fight starts by restoring funding for disaster mitigation—the very funding this administration cruelly slashed,” Senator Gallego said. “[BRIC] was a [smart] program to stop disasters before they happened, to protect lives, protect homes, and save us – as taxpayers – money.”
The witness spoke on the importance of this funding and restoring the BRIC program. He also discussed how burdensome regulations from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) can prevent communities from accessing disaster relief funds.
“I think there is a lot of things about the Stafford Act and different rules around FEMA that can really get in the way of achieving the mission,” said Dr. Lawrence Powell, Executive Director, Center for Insurance and Research, Culverhouse College of Business, University of Alabama. “At one point we had a big grant from FEMA in Alabama to pay [to] retrofit homes and we had to give it back because the hoops to jump through were too onerous. We were not able to do one single retrofit with that money.”
Gallego promised to work with the committee to address those bureaucratic barriers.
“Definitely reach out to my office,” Gallego said. “I’m on the committee that oversees FEMA, and it makes zero sense for us to fund programs that communities can’t actually use because of the regulations we imposed on ourselves.”
In July, Senator Gallego led a letter calling out DHS Secretary Noem’s misguided, dangerous rule requiring her personal approval for all FEMA contracts, purchases, and grants over $100,000. This red tape effectively blocks FEMA from acting quickly and unnecessarily delays deployments of critical resources.
At the hearing, the Senator also spoke on rising home insurance costs, a growing concern for Arizonans living in forested and high-risk areas.
10/21/25