Washington think tank calls for limited federal response to Katrina

A special report from a Washington, D.C.-based think tank argues that federal agencies should only provide assistance and support to the victims of Hurricane Katrina in situations where state and local governments and the private sector cannot act.

The Heritage Foundation's 10-page paper calls for Congress to freeze federal discretionary spending to offset funding needs stemming from the recovery of the Gulf Coast disaster.

"State and local governments must retain their primary role as first responders to disasters," the report stated. "The federal government should avoid federalizing state and local first-response agencies and activities."

Edwin Meese, a Heritage public policy fellow and chairman of the organization's Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, said there is a blurring of responsibilities between state and local authorities and the federal government when aid from Washington is being provided.

He said federal aid should be handled responsibly and criticized the Federal Emergency Management Agency's defunct plan to hand out $2,000 debit cards to the disaster victims.

"One of the things that Washington does well is overreacting," Meese said. "And they do that by throwing money at the problem."

Endorsing a proposal to remove FEMA from the Homeland Security Department and return it to its independent status, the report contends that the agency should focus solely on coordinating disaster response, eliminating what was a lack of communication between state, local and national responders.

The Heritage report calls for the restructuring of the National Guard through the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review allowing forces to be mobilized more rapidly so military forces would assist state and local governments with disaster response.

Kim R. Holmes, the think tank's vice president for foreign and defense policy studies, said the government's ability to respond to a disaster is being called into question and that the nation is not prepared for a large-scale catastrophic terrorist attack.

"[Hurricane Katrina] was as bad as a nuke, absent the fire and radiation effects," Holmes said. "Washington needs the authority to give state and local governments assistance."

The paper, which was co-authored by Holmes, Meese and Stuart M. Butler, Heritage's vice president for domestic and economic policy studies, called for a $1.5 billion increase in the Coast Guard's modernization project, the Integrated Deepwater Program, which the report said is annually underfunded. According to the report, the House has proposed to cut more than $200 million from the agency's fiscal 2006 budget.