FEMA’s Public Assistance Grant Program: Background and Considerations for Congress

[Excerpt] The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5121 et seq., henceforth the Stafford Act) confers upon the President a broad set of authorities “to alleviate the suffering and damage” of affected tribal, state, and local governments, as well as individual citizens, from disasters. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been given the responsibility of administering almost all of the President’s Stafford Act authorities through other law, a series of Executive Orders, and a DHS delegation. FEMA has established the Public Assistance (PA) Grant Program by combining the authority of multiple sections of the Stafford Act. The PA Program provides financial grant assistance to states, tribes, and local communities both in the response to and recovery from significant disasters. Between FY2000-FY2013, the PA Program has provided $52.6 billion in grant assistance to help communities pay for an array of eligible response and recovery activities, including debris removal, emergency protective measures, and the repair, replacement, or restoration of disaster-damaged, publicly owned facilities and the facilities of certain private nonprofit (PNP) organizations. The authorities of the PA Program were most recently significantly amended by the Sandy Recovery Improvement Act (Division B of P.L. 113- 2, the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2013; henceforth SRIA). For a brief legislative history of PA Program authorities, see Appendix A. This report provides background on key elements of the PA Program, such as the eligibility of applicants, the types of assistance available, and the methods FEMA uses for awarding grant assistance. Summary analysis of federal obligations for PA Program assistance is also provided along important variables, such as the distribution of federal obligations across the PA Program eligible categories of work assistance. The report concludes with discussion of several policy issues that Congress may wish to consider when evaluating the PA Program in the future, including considerations of significant prospective changes to the PA Program and the role of the PA Program in the context of other federal agency disaster assistance authorities

Bioeconomic analysis of protected area use in fisheries management

Protected areas in fishery management have been suggested to hedge management failures and variation in harvests. In this paper, a stochastic bioeconomic model of a two-species fishery in the Manning Bioregion is used to test the performance of protected areas as a management tool in a fishery. The establishment of a protected area is analysed under the assumption of heterogenous environments that are linked via density-dependent or sink-source stock dispersal relationships. The sensitivity of the results to different degrees of management is also explored. The model is applied to the Ocean Prawn Trawl, and Ocean Trap and Line fisheries within Manning Bioregion in New South Wales, Australia. The focus of the study is placed on the biological and institutional characteristics that yield benefits to the fishery. It was found that protected area use in the Manning Bioregion is likely to have differing effects on the two fisheries examined, benefiting Ocean Trap and Line fishers but adversely affecting Ocean Prawn Trawl fishers. Overall, it is unlikely that protected area use will lead to an increase resource rent in the fishery.bioeconomics, fisheries management, marine protected areas, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Tariffs and Steel: The US Safeguard Actions

This paper presents a multi-product price linked spatial equilibrium model of world steel trade. The model is used to analyse the impacts of the safeguard trade barriers brought about by the United States in order to protect their domestic industry from so called unfair competition. Emphasis is placed on the likely effect to the Australian industry and possible policy responses available to the industry. A case study is made on Australia's three largest export products, namely slab, hot-rolled and cold-rolled steel, which share some substitutability in supply and demand due to the nature of the industry.trade, spatial equilibrium model, steel, International Relations/Trade,

Tariffs and steel: US safeguard actions

A multiproduct spatial equilibrium model of world steel trade is presented in this paper. The model is used to analyse the impacts of the safeguard trade barriers brought about by the USA in order to protect their domestic industry from the so-called unfair competition. Emphasis is placed on the likely effect on the Australian industry and possible policy responses available to the industry. A case study is made of Australia’s three largest export products; namely, slab, hot-rolled and cold-rolled steel, which share some substitutability in supply and demand because of the nature of the industry. As a result of the safeguard barriers to steel trade, world steel prices fell and trade shifted away from the USA to other importing regions.spatial equilibrium model, steel, trade, International Relations/Trade,

Marine Protected Areas in Fisheries Management

The use of protected areas as a fishery management tool has been suggested as a hedge against management failures and variation in harvests. A stochastic bioeconomic model of a two-species fishery will be used to test the performance of protected areas as a management tool in a fishery with heterogenous environments. Protected areas are analysed under density-dependent and sink-source dispersal relationships between environments within the fishery. The model is applied to Manning Bioregion in NSW. Protected area performance as a tool for fisheries will be analysed given the existing management arrangement. The focus of the study is placed on the biological and economic characteristics that yield benefits to the fishery.Fisheries, Fisheries management, bioeconomics, marine protected areas, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q2, Q22, Q28, Q57,

Neurotrophic keratitis in a patient with disseminated lymphangiomatosis.

INTRODUCTION: Neurotrophic keratitis, a degenerative corneal disease caused by trigeminal nerve impairment, has many etiologies and remains very difficult to treat. METHODS: Case report of a 23-year-old male with a right corneal ulcer that failed to improve despite broad-spectrum antimicrobials. RESULTS: Prior diagnosis of disseminated lymphangiomatosis with a lesion in the right petrous apex effacing Meckel's (trigeminal) cave in conjunction with a history of nonhealing corneal abrasions suggested a neurotrophic etiology. Drawstring temporary tarsorrhaphy, in addition to antibiotics and autologous serum, lead to successful clearing of the infection and resolution of the corneal ulcer. Visual acuity improved from light perception (LP) at the peak of infection to 20/40 six weeks after treatment. CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge, we report the first case of neurotrophic keratitis in a patient with disseminated lymphangiomatosis that caused a mass effect in Meckel's (trigeminal) cave leading to compression of the trigeminal nerve. The antibiotic-resistant corneal ulcer was successfully treated with drawstring tarsorrhaphy, confirming the utility of this therapeutic measure in treating neurotrophic keratitis

Specifying attracting cycles for Newton maps of polynomials

We show that for any set of n distinct points in the complex plane, there exists a polynomial p of degree at most n+1 so that the corresponding Newton map, or even the relaxed Newton map, for p has the given points as a super-attracting cycle. This improves the result due to Plaza and Romero (2011), which shows how to find such a polynomial of degree 2n. Moreover we show that in general one cannot improve upon degree n+1. Our methods allow us to give a simple, constructive proof of the known result that for each cycle length n at least 2 and degree d at least 3, there exists a polynomial of degree d whose Newton map has a super-attracting cycle of length n.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figure