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The top two senators on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said Tuesday they plan to hold as early as next week the first public hearing on the government response to Hurricane Katrina.

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, and ranking member Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said government officials at all levels share the blame for "inadequate" preparedness and response. They have told committee staff to begin investigating the response efforts by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Some lawmakers have called for FEMA to be removed from the Homeland Security Department, but Collins and Lieberman do not support that move.

"I start with the assumption in favor of FEMA staying in [the department]," Lieberman said. FEMA and Homeland Security officials are slated Wednesday to brief the committee and other senators.

Collins and Lieberman deflected questions about assigning blame to federal officials, specifically Emergency Preparedness and Response Undersecretary Michael Brown, who with Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff oversees FEMA.

"We need to take a careful look at all the roles of officials," Collins said.

She added the panel's investigation might lead to an independent commission similar to the 9/11 Commission. Lieberman said the investigation would also review Congress' role in creating the department and spending levels for FEMA and other agencies.

"We can't be defensive about anything," he said.

Congress placed FEMA within the department after an independent commission argued that the agency should be trained to respond to both terrorist attacks and emergency situations. Chertoff floated a plan in July to make the agency a stand-alone entity within the department. It would report directly to the secretary and focus solely on response efforts while creating a preparedness division.

On the House side, the Homeland Security Committee is likely to hold investigative hearings as well, but a committee aide said the schedule has not been determined. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee also has jurisdiction over FEMA. A House GOP leadership aide said Majority Leader DeLay has asked House chairmen to propose ideas for a legislative package that could come to the floor as early as this week. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., plans to offer legislation to remove FEMA from the Homeland Security Department.

COMMENTS

• The decision will be to organize another 9/11 type commitee, which will come up with recommendations, the Pres will approve all recommendations and then the American people will wait for another disaster to occur that the Commitee had not thought of and when it happens we will be unprepared for it. The best recommendation would be to abolish the Department of Homeland Security and start over. It is nothing but a bloated hackfilled agency spending taxpayers' money. Note when DHS needs appropriations a supposed terror alert is raised and is foiled just before the appropriation is voted on. William G. Mahar Posted September 9, 2005 8:55 AM
• Why is a security agency running a major disaster relief effort? This makes no sense and George the third should do better for the people of the USA than this effort seems to have done. Fire Mike Brown now and be done with it. Even though it is not his fault he has been setup to take the fall! No lawyer is trained to run a disaster relief effort. Someday maybe the lawyers in politics will learn that there are people trained for the work the lawyers think they can do but can't. taxpayer Posted September 7, 2005 8:01 AM
• If Hurricane Katrina can't convince the senators to take FEMA out of DHS we're in for real problems. It's long been known that FEMA has been the stepchild in the "law enforcement" arena of DHS and if their funding cuts by the administration doesn't prove it; speak with any top manager or employee; excluding the SES and political hacks like Brownie. In my experience in DHS; FEMA often brings to the table serious issues only to be "snickered at" by the mucho macho lawmen. Maybe the first step would be to remove these two politicians from these committees and bring in some commonsense. As they keep repeating in the national media: what's going to happen when we have several "terrorist" attacks at once? Bottomline is this whole DHS circus was a kneejerk reaction that created an unmanageable monster. God help us all if these politicos can't see it. GovExec.com reader Posted September 7, 2005 6:27 AM