TOPICS
TOPICS
Overhaul of emergency management system urged
Several House lawmakers on Thursday called for a major overhaul of the nation's emergency management system, including removing the Federal Emergency Management Agency from the Homeland Security Department.
"Today, confidence in FEMA and, by extension, the Department of Homeland Security, is at an all-time low," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee.
With the next hurricane season fast approaching, some lawmakers believe Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is taking a huge gamble in the way he has reorganized preparedness and response functions within the department.
Last summer, Chertoff announced that preparedness activities would be removed from FEMA and put in a new directorate. FEMA, the secretary said, would focus on its core mission of response and recovery to disasters.
But Chertoff's vision has never been tested. The changes were slated to go into effect last October, meaning they had not been made by the time Hurricane Katrina struck in late August.
"When Katrina came, we operated under the old system and the system failed," Chertoff said.
Members of the House Homeland Security Committee and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Thursday continued what has been an onslaught of criticism directed at Chertoff and DHS over the federal government's response to Katrina. Some Democrats have called for Chertoff to resign.
"FEMA cannot be fixed inside the DHS belly but should return to its independent status," said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C.
"Whether FEMA stays in DHS or not, we have to put FEMA back together again," added Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. "FEMA has been weakened and responsibility has been spread out all over DHS. Preparedness responsibility is in one place and response is in another."
Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, told the NewsHour Wednesday he also is open to making major changes.
"One answer, instead of just firing Chertoff ... might be to relieve [DHS of] this particular responsibility -- this first responder responsibility -- that you see in FEMA, and move it somewhere else where it will probably get a little bit better response."
Davis' spokesman, Robert White, said: "Clearly, where FEMA belongs, organizationally, is something that Congress is going to discuss this year."
Chertoff resisted calls to overhaul FEMA and change how the department is structured to prepare for and respond to disasters. He said he stands by his decision to remove preparedness activities from FEMA, adding that it would be "a huge mistake" to make FEMA an independent agency.
Chertoff said he restructured the department in part because preparedness activities were too dispersed among FEMA and other divisions. He said the new Preparedness Directorate is unifying activities such as grants, planning and training.
He also noted that the department now has a new undersecretary for preparedness and a chief medical officer.
The secretary acknowledged, however, that the clock is ticking because the next hurricane season starts in June. FEMA is still without a permanent director or deputy director, and Chertoff only this week announced reforms that must be made at the agency.
"FEMA has to reload before the next hurricane season," Chertoff said.
But Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee are not convinced that DHS is doing the right thing and have proposed legislation to overhaul FEMA.
The Plan to Restore Efficiency and Professional Accountability in Responding to Emergencies (PREPARE) Act would require FEMA to have a director who had experience in emergency management and who would report directly to the president during all incidents of national significance.
The bill, which has yet to be introduced, also would "reunite" preparedness and response functions at DHS by placing FEMA in the new Preparedness Directorate. The FEMA director would be the department's undersecretary of preparedness.
"I recognize that making these operational changes may be difficult and even embarrassing ... but they must be done to prevent future massive failings by the government," Thompson said.
COMMENTS
- So the Secretary thinks it would be horrible to make FEMA a stand-alone agency? What does he think it was for years before the creation of the monster agency that is DHS? FEMA should never have been made a part of DHS. DHS focuses on the law enforcement/intelligence operations to detect, deter, and prevent as it should. FEMA, for years provided the support for training, planning, and developing a response capability at the local level. Preparedness cannot be separated from the cycle of preparedness, response, recovery and mitigation that is necessary when dealing with a true all-hazards approach to emergency management capabilities. While terrorism is a threat, how many attacks have there been in the United States. since 9/11? How many floods, hurricane, etc. have there been since 9/11? DHS is absorbed in focusing on preventing terrorism -- great. Let someone deal with responding to all possible occurrences -- natural and man-made. But then the Secretary himself stated that he "did not have 30 years" of dealing with disasters. That is why he should not be the final word. He is attorney and a judge. This makes him no more qualified to decide FEMA's fate than Michael Brown was. SWT in Texas. GovExec.com reader Posted February 23, 2006 4:09 PM
- Now that the whole thing is messed up, does anyone really think there will be any changes in DHS? George Bush is not going to put anyone in a position of authority inside FEMA that will do the job required. We will get more Chertoff-like people. They will only wait until the White House tells them what to say and what to do. Do not expect anything of substance out of this administration, it simply will not happen. We have a president out of control, a vice president that thinks he runs the country, a secretary of state at a loss for words that mean something (it’s all double talk) and an attorney general that is not authorized to talk about anything operational. That pretty much leaves the American public with their nose in the breeze waiting for a cherry blossom wind to come by and cheer up the day. rds Posted February 20, 2006 3:31 PM
- This article illustrates aspects of the typical agency-Congress dance, seen time-and-again in the past and surely to be repeated in future encounters. The steps to this dance? Well, first, a problem is identified by an external observer or cataclysmic event. Congress then huffily demands hearings to grill the subject agency. The agency comes before Congress and, guess what? They report that the conditions or systems that were in place and viewed as allowing the problem to occur have already been redesigned, which implies the need for such a hearing to be largely unnecessary. Congress, not to be outdone by the agency's ploy of claiming a fix is in place, so leave us alone, reacts first with vote-getting sound bites, and then one-ups the agency by submitting a bill whose title lends itself to a too-cute acronym. The theater that is our bureaucracy! The agency sees itself as successfully proactive, not because it fixed a problem prior to a disaster, but in being able to report a supposed fix in place prior to the hearings. Congress is happy to have had an opportunity to play to the gallery, and to have a catchy acronym to sprinkle into their sound bites. Rejoice! Another win-win for truth, justice and the American way! EJC in ATL GovExec.com reader Posted February 17, 2006 8:15 AM
